Land Arts 2022 Exhibition
The opening reception will take place from 6-8 p.m. Friday, February 17, 2023, at the Museum of Texas Tech University at 3301 4th Street in Lubbock, Texas.
The exhibition culminates the semester-long transdisciplinary field program Land Arts of the American West presenting documents and constructions by students Ty Cary, Elise Coleman, Macaella Gray, Walker Guinnee, Miranda Klein, Emily Lee, Megan McKenzie, and Zoe Roden. Within the Texas Tech University Huckabee College of Architecture, Land Arts is a “semester abroad in our own backyard” where architects, artists, historians, and writers camped for fifty nights while traveling 5,522 miles overland to experience major land art monuments—Double Negative, Spiral Jetty, Sun Tunnels, The Lightning Field—while also visiting sites expanding our understanding of what land art might be such as pre-contact archeology of Chaco Canyon, scientific exploration at the Very Large Array, and military-industrial operations in the Great Salt Lake Desert. To negotiate the multivalent meaning of these places and shed light on strategies to aid their comprehension we invite the wisdom of field guests—writers, artists, and interpreters—to join specific portions of our journey. 2022 field guests included Matt Coolidge and Aurora Tang of the Center for Land Use Interpretation, artist-filmmaker Deborah Stratman, musician, artist Dionne Lee, and Cabinet magazine editor Sina Najafi among many others. Land Arts hinges on the primacy of first-person experience and the realization that human-land relationships are rarely singular. The Land Arts 2022 Exhibition will continue through April 23, 2023.
Gallery Hours and Events
The exhibition is open Tuesdays through Saturdays 10am – 5pm and Sundays 1-5pm. Admission is free.
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About Land Arts 2022
The Land Arts 2022 field crew includes participants Ty Cary, anthropologist / ethnographer based in Colorado with BA from McGill and MS from University of Oxford, Elise Coleman, designer / artist based in Amsterdam with BFA from U Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Macaella Gray, independent scholar based in Austin, Texas with BA in art history from University of Texas at Austin, Walker Guinnee, artist based in Oakland, California with BA in art history from Mills College, Miranda Klein, dark room photographer and writer based in Providence, Rhode Island with BA from Earlham College, Emily Lee, artist and curator based in Austin, Texas with BFA in studio art and a BA in art history from University of Texas at Austin, Megan McKenzie, secretary based in Philadelphia with BA in art history from University of Texas at Austin, and Zoe Roden, independent scholar based in Austin, Texas with BA in art history & humanities from University of Texas at Austin.
Sites on the 2022 itinerary ventured from Cebolla Canyon and Jackpile Mine to Muley Point, Goblin Valley, Spiral Jetty, Sun Tunnels, Center for Land Use Interpretation Wendover, Double Negative, North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Trick Tank, Chaco Canyon, Marfa, Mimbres River, Chiricahua Mountains, Cabinetlandia, Plains of San Agustin, The Lightning Field, Two Buttes, White Sands, and Lubbock.
Field guests for 2022 were C.J. Alvarez, Steve Badgett, Katherine Bash & Duncan Kennedy, Matthew Coolidge, Gretchen Dietrich, Curtis Francisco, Aaron Hegert, Ian James, Jesse & Irma Larriva, Dionne Lee, Caleb Lightfoot, Beth Menczer, Maggie Mitts, Sina Najafi, Daisy Nam, Andrea Nasher, Matthew Passmore, Monty Paret, David Pierce, Kaitlin Pomerantz, Ann Reynolds, Alexander Robinson, Cordelia Rose, Emily Eliza Scott, Ingrid Schaffner, J. Eric Simpson, Deborah Stratman, Aurora Tang, and Lucia Thomé.
Land Arts 2022 field season was made possible with generous operational support from Andrea Nasher, the James Family Foundation, Matti and Henry Brown and Rhotenberry Wellen Architects. This was the second year with the Land Arts Support Vehicle possible with a gift from Owl Call Radio.
Chris Taylor, director of Land Arts of the American West at Texas Tech, leads the program and was assisted in the field by Talia Brown from Duluth, Minnesota.
About the Huckabee College of Architecture
The Huckabee College of Architecture at Texas Tech University is located in Lubbock where architectural education has been offered since 1927. The college includes undergraduate, graduate and PhD students and over fifty faculty members. Graduate certificate programs are offered in Digital Design Fabrication, Health Care Design, Historic Preservation, Urban and Community Design, and, Land Arts of the American West, as well as an interdisciplinary doctoral program in Land-Use Planning, Management, and Design.
About the Museum of Texas Tech University
Established in 1929, the Museum is an educational, scientific, cultural, and research element of Texas Tech University. It is a not-for-profit institution by virtue of being a part of Texas Tech University. The Museum’s purpose is to support the academic and intellectual mission of Texas Tech University through the collection, preservation, documentation, and research of scientific and cultural material and to disseminate information about those collections and their scientific and cultural topics through exhibition, interpretation, and publication for primary, secondary, and higher education students, the scholarly community, and the general public. The Museum aspires to provide the highest standard of excellence in museological ethics and practices, while pursuing continuous improvement, stimulating the greatest quantity of quality research, conservation, interpretation, exhibition, and education, and providing support for faculty, staff, and students. The Museum is a multi-faceted institution that includes the main building, the Helen Devitt Jones Auditorium and Sculpture Court, Moody Planetarium, Natural Science Research Laboratory, and Lubbock Lake Landmark, an archaeological and natural history preserve.
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For additional information about Land Arts of the American West at Texas Tech or to schedule an interview with Chris Taylor contact him by phone at 806-834-1589 or email at chris.taylor@ttu.edu. Information about the College of Architecture can be found at http://arch.ttu.edu, and the Museum of Texas Tech University by visiting https://www.depts.ttu.edu/museumttu/.