This conference seeks exciting disciplinary and transdisciplinary proposals from scholars working in fields such as cultural studies, literary studies, cultural politics/history, creative writing, film and media studies, Area Studies, photography, fine art, interested in examining the different ways in which human beings respond and relate to, as well as debate and interact with landscape.

The conference organizers are particularly interested in proposals examining the following:

• psychogeography
• critical regionalism
• cultural politics on identity and landscape
• national identity
• suburbia
• edgelands
• the rural / urban
• responses to landscape by creative practitioners (writers / photographers
/ artists / filmmakers)
• phenomenology
• the body in landscape
• Ecocriticism
• landscapes of trauma and memory
• theories of affect and landscape

Please send proposals of not more than 250 words by 16 December 2011 to Dr. Christine Berberich at christine [dot] berberich [at] port [dot] ac [dot] uk

Reposted from http://www.derby.ac.uk/affectivelandscapes Further details about the conference, the venue, travel, accommodation, registration etc can be found there too

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

- Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
- Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
- Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
- Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

Patricia Johnson will discuss her collaborative Petaluma Wetlands Park project at the Nevada Museum of Art’s Center for Art + Environment LAB (Reno) in November.http://www.patriciajohanson.com The talk, November 13, 2009, is part of “Art and Infrastructure,” an exhibition of her drawings and designs on display in the museum’s CA+E LAB, September 19, 2009 – January 10, 2010. Using constructed and natural wetlands Johanson created a multipurpose public landscape in Petaluma, Calif., providing three miles of recreational use, educational programs and nature study alongside a facility that simultaneously processes human sewage, while also generating crops and creating wildlife habitats. “One of my missions as a designer is to create inclusive, life-supporting landscapes that broaden human understanding,” says Johanson on her Web site http://www.patriciajohanson.com. “Artists have always changed the way we see. Now we need to change the way we act.”

via APInews: Artist To Speak on Petaluma Wetlands Park .

Sammy Baloiji is one of twelve photographers shortlisted for the 2009 Prix Pictet, a prize for photography about sustainability. The premise behind his series is simple – to superimpose photographs from the Congo’s colonial past over modern photographs of the consequences of that history. The Congo has been well and truly raped for minerals and other resources over the last century; for that see Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost. Also this blog post about Mongrel’s Tantalum Memorial.

The theme for the 2009 Prix Pictet was “Earth”. The 2009 shortlist is really phenomenal and includes work from the great Darren Almond, Yao Lu’s remarkable Chinese landscapes constructed from rubbish won the 2008 Paris Photo Prize, Edward Burtynsky’s scary/beautiful quarry photographs, and this series, again from quarries, from Naoya Hatakeyama:
Blast #5707 by Naoya Hatakeyama, 1998 Japan

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology

“LAND/ART,” a massive six-month environmental art project involving more than 25 presenting organizations in New Mexico, opened last weekend with a symposium. Coordinated by 516 ARTS, events began June 27 with a guided bus tour by The Center for Land Use Interpretation through dramatic built landscapes. Continuing through December 2009, “LAND/ART” explores relationships of land, art and community through dozens of new exhibitions, community-based projects, site-specific art works, speakers series, performances, tours, excursions and a culminating book. “Historically,” says the organizers, “New Mexico has been a place where the intersection of nature and culture is at issue. In the 1960s and ‘70s, the American Southwest was the location of the first generation of Land Art or Earthworks,” including The Lightning Field, the Star Axis, Spiral Jetty, the Sun Tunnels and Roden Crater. Details are online.

via APInews: LAND/ART Opens in New Mexico .

LECTURE EVENT: JRHS at FARMLAB Salon
Downtown Los Angeles | Friday, May 22nd, NOON

Join Kim Stringfellow along with Wonder Valley artist, Chris Carraher, for a presentation of and discussion about the JACKRABBIT HOMESTEAD audio tour project.

Stringfellow and Carraher will discuss the history and contemporary landscapes of jackrabbit homesteading, specifically how the cabins resulting from the Small Tract Act have helped to foster the thriving creative community located throughout the Morongo Basin region where Joshua Tree National Park is located. Several tracks from the freely downloadable car audio tour available at www.jackrabbithomestead.com will be presented.

JACKRABBIT HOMESTEAD is a forthcoming book and web-based multimedia presentation featuring a downloadable car audio tour exploring the cultural legacy of the Small Tract Act in Southern California’s Morongo Basin region near Joshua Tree National Park. Stories from this underrepresented regional history are told through the voices of local residents, historians, and area artists—many of whom reside in reclaimed historic cabins and use the structures as inspiration for their creative work. Funding for this project was made possible, in part, by a grant from the California Council for the Humanities as part of the Council’s statewide California Stories Initiative.

FARMLAB Salon provides free, healthy organic lunch for those who drop by for the weekly lecture series. For more info visit:  http://farmlab.org/2009/05/farmlab-public-salon-kim-stringfellow.html.

via Farmlab

via APInews: Panel: Art + Land Reclamation, Urban Ecology .