This event will address the reclamation of post-industrial landscapes, environmental impact of the practices of reclamation, and roles that architecture, art and design play in such processes. The panel will further discuss the field methods of Land Arts of the American West, and the Incubo Atacama Lab in Chile, as a case study. Joel Towers, Dean of the School of Design Strategies, and an Assoc. Professor of Architecture and Urban Ecology at The New School, will frame the panel by discussing the epistemological significance of post-industrial landscapes within the framework of Urban Ecology, and also the environmental impact of reclamation.

Land Arts of the American West at Texas Tech, directed by Chris Taylor, is a field program that investigates the intersection of geomorphology and human construction beginning with the land and extending through the complex social and ecological processes that produce contemporary landscapes. The Incubo Atacama Lab project began when the curatorial exchange organization Incubo invited Chris Taylor to bring the working methods of Land Arts to Chile. The lab brought together a group of students and researchers from North and South America for a conference in Santiago and fieldwork in the Atacama Desert to examine earthworks and create contemporary responses to the industrial use of land over time. Panel respondent will be Carin Kuoni, Director of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, The New School, who will also moderate the discussion.

The event is organized by the School of Design Strategies at Parsons The New School for Design, in collaboration with “Into the Open: Positioning Practice,” the Venice Biennale US Pavilion Exhibit at Parsons, and with the Vera List Center for Art and Politics (The New School).

Participants:

Joel Towers, Dean of the School of Design Strategies, and an Assoc. Professor of Architecture and Urban Ecology, Parsons, The New School

Chris Taylor, Director of Land Arts of the American West at Texas Tech University

Incubo, Santiago, Chile

Flora Vilches, Curator at Museo Arqueológico Gustavo Le Paige, San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

Carin Kuoni, Director of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, The New School

Parsons The New School for Design, Aronson Gallery, 2 West 13 Street, 1st floor, New York, NY 10011

http://landarts.org/index.php/worker/display/reclamation_of_post_industrial_territories/