Associate Professor, Pip Brant, is teaching a course at FIU’s Biscayne Bay Campus this semester called Land and Earth Art, which facilitates awareness for the BBC environment by using mostly craft mediums.
Students learn about the history and practice of Land Art, an art movement in which landscapes and works of art are linked. Students will then put their artistic practices to use through collaborative projects that utilize multidisciplinary approaches to address environmental issues and the public role of art.
So far, students have attended lectures about animal/animal parts trafficking, and have started to integrate their concerns in yarn and clay. Concerns explored thus far include activism to publicize ecological issues/monitoring ecological problems, urban infrastructure/environmental justice and studying species depletion.
Sahily Perez, a journalism student, is completing a project titled “Flavor Share”. For this project, Perez will sgraffito clay pots and fill them with herbs as parsley, cilantro and basil. Sgraffito is a form of decoration made by scratching a surface to a lower layer of a contrasting color, typically done in stucco on walls, or in slip. These pots will be placed on meeting tables around campus, becoming not only a work of art, but also a way for students to season their food!
Andrea Wolverton, a physics major, is adept at crocheting and her grandmother has left her a ton of yarn. She is crocheting giant cozies for bumper posts around the parking machine as a way of beautifying everyday objects on campus. Artists, Regina Jestrow and Duane Brant are also assisting with their knowledge of clay and fibers with hands-on workshops; Duane is working with the reductive process of sgraffito and Regina is making crocheted bird habitats to place around campus.
Elizabeth Largo, a marine biology student, will be painting with moss spores and another student is creating a t-shirt design to discourage ivory consumption. Group projects involve taking on grant writing and larger outreach on projects.
If you are interested in learning more about the class and assigned projects, please visit the course blog
here.
