About the Land Arts of the American West Graduate Certificate
The 12-hour Land Arts of the American West Graduate Certificate in the Huckabee College of Architecture centers on the transdisciplinary Land Arts field program that investigates the intersection of human construction and the evolving nature of the planet. The program leverages immersive field experience in the desert southwest as a primary pedagogic agent to support research that opens horizons of perception, probes depths of inquiry, and advances understanding of human actions shaping environments. Land Arts attracts architects, artists, and writers from across the university and beyond to a “semester abroad in our own backyard” that travels 6,000 miles overland while camping for two months to experience major land art monuments—Double Negative, Spiral Jetty, Sun Tunnels, The Lightning Field—while also visiting sites to expand understanding of what land art might be, such as pre-contact archeology, military and industrial facilities, and contemporary infrastructure. Throughout the travels and on campus, participants make work in response to their experience, which is exhibited at the Museum of Texas Tech University to conclude the field season.
The specialty courses in this certificate emphasize the merits, rigors, and risks of fieldwork; the in-depth value of seminar-based dialog; the public exhibition of research produced products; and the synthesis, documentation, and reflection of the experience in written and visual forms.
Students will apply to the TTU Graduate School.
Contact: Chris Taylor, Director of Land Arts of the American West at Texas Tech, chris.taylor@ttu.edu, 806.834.1589
