University of Vermont, Environmental Program and the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources
Course: Greening Aiken: Art and Architecture Studio
Cameron Davis and Diane Elliott Gayer
Students in the Art and Architecture Studio will have the opportunity to participate in design proposals that explore the common boundary of art, ecology and design in what are called “Ecoventions,” or art that restores damaged habitats, allows water infiltration, and enhances living environments. These art interventions will build awareness of the “green” features being designed into the George D. Aiken Center, home to UVM’s Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources. Students will learn and develop critical thinking in the following areas: the growing field of environmental art, the fundamentals of ecological design as related to human spatial needs and site specific requirements, and understanding of the relationship between form and function, and design parameters which include aesthetic, biophilic, mechanic, and living systems criteria.
The class is part of a three-year sequence of courses designed in conjunction with the Greening Aiken Renovation Project. Course designs will be passed from one class to the next in the sequence; ending in the implementation of designs during the final design/build summer intensive. Students are encouraged to design thesis, research, and/or grant proposals in conjunction with this sequence (e.g. URECA! Projects).
Students from this class are invited to submit their designs to the exhibition: Human=Landscape, Aesthetics of a Carbon Constrained Future (working title), Firehouse Gallery, Burlington City Arts, Burlington, VT, August 2009
Guest Speakers:
Course: Ecological Design Studio
Course: Place Based Environmental Art
University of Vermont and Burlington City Arts
Course: Environmental Art: Lecture Series and Studio Seminar
Cameron Davis
Environmental Art Lecture Series and Studio Seminar explores issues within the broad field of Environmental Art. Held in collaboration with Burlington City Arts this course continues themes raised by the Firehouse Gallery Summer 2006 exhibition Human=Nature. This exhibition explored several emerging areas within the Environmental Art movement, including Ecoventions (restoration and remediation), sense of place, and understanding the human venture within the larger living web of life. Students will be required to attend public lectures at the Firehouse Gallery, classroom lectures, as well as create a body of work whose content reflects course theme(s). Readings, discussions, lecture repsonse papers and an artist statement essay will further support students understanding of their own studio or site-specific work within the wider context of the growing Environmental Art movement.
Guest Speakers:
University of Vermont, Department of Art and Art History
Course: Painting
Course: Drawing
Course: Two-Dimensional Studies