LAND CARE IN THE EXPANDED FIELD: The Art of Landscape Maintenance in a Broken World
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Date
2022-06
Authors
Pierce, Abigail
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
Landscape maintenance is a largely routinized and
long-term process, and these qualities have the tendency
to render it invisible. And yet, if we are to sensitively and
meaningfully engage landscapes and the communities
present therein, an ethics of care for landscape
architecture is essential. To understand land care, and
its importance in this moment, it must be made more
familiar by enhancing its visibility, appeal, and power.
This project explores the concept of a maintenance
artist in residence, as inspired by the work of the
artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles. Ukeles has been the
maintenance artist in residence with the New York
Sanitation Department for 40+ years. Through empathy
and connection, Ukeles’ socially engaged art practice
lends visibility to the reality, necessity, and creativity of
maintenance work. The guiding question for this project
is: How can the Ukeles model of maintenance artist in
residence be applied within landscapes?
Using the framework of creative practice for this
inquiry opens the possibility of speculative design and
the generative potential of iterative design in relation
to practices of landscape maintenance. Four typologies
of maintenance art are identified through Ukeles’ work:
interaction, performance, documentation, and exhibition.
These typologies are then explored through a researchthrough-
design methodology informed by creative
modes of inquiry as detailed in Karen Lutzky and Sean
Burkholder’s “Curious Methods” and Tim Ingold’s Making.
Studying land care in this way will hopefully lead to
understanding its potential as a socially engaged, multidisciplinary
creative practice serving both the physical and
social infrastructures that require our ongoing attention. A
Maintenance-Artist-in-Residence could act as a living link
between designers, caregivers, and communities, while
increasing visibility and respect for land care, the labor it
involves, and the creative potential it holds.
Description
40 page
Keywords
Maintenance art typologies, Industrial aftermath, Care-centered practice