The Indigenous worldview maintains that history and cultural memory is something ‘written on the land’—that the landscape is an animate, living, and embodied archive. From this perspective this course endeavours to explore what Vine Deloria jr. called the ‘spatiality’ of storytelling—how stories can be dimensional as well as durational; how narratives are intricately interconnected with ‘place’, the landscape and the environment. At its core, this course is about embodied storytelling, and the ways in which we might ‘participate’ with the stories on-the-land while exploring our own individual relationships with the living archive of place.

LandMarks is a collaborative studio environment where students develop contemporary art projects within an interdisciplinary context.

LandMarks is a studio-based learning environment in which students research and produce contemporary art projects across drawing, photography, video, sculpture, performance, installation, and interdisciplinary practices, with studio work integrated with visual lectures, readings, discussion, and critique. The course emphasizes collaborative ways of working, with many projects developed collectively and guided by Indigenous ways of knowing, sharing, learning, and creating, encouraging attentiveness to process, dialogue, and shared responsibility. Land-based practice is central to the course and includes working on-site, engaging material processes, and attending to the ways Indigenous and non-Indigenous histories are held within specific places, alongside learning about Indigenous protocols and respectful approaches to community engagement. Throughout the term, students situate their studio work within broader contemporary conversations while remaining grounded in lived experience and place, fostering a dynamic studio culture that supports experimentation, care, and sustained engagement with artistic practice.

IMAGE (main): Landmarks Class Winter 2024 / Snow Snake Project / Multimedia Installation. IMAGE (left): Landmarks Class Winter 2024 / Turning of the Ashes /Interactive Sound Art Performances.