Enrolments for 2023 have closed.
Visualising "Nature": Landscape, Land Art and Environmental Ethics
Undergraduate | LTU-ART3001 | 2023
Course information for 2023 intake View information for 2024 course intake
- Study method
- 100% online
- Assessments
- 100% online
- Entry requirements
- Prior study needed
- Duration
- 12 weeks
HECS-HELP and FEE-HELP available
Visualising "Nature": Landscape, Land Art and Environmental Ethics
About this subject
- Analyse and evaluate ethical debates and ideas that apply to current ecological and environmental issues within a contemporary art context.
- Articulate and develop an understanding of changing interpretations of the landscape tradition and their relation to ecological issues.
- Demonstrate a broad understanding of how art is made and responds to its cultural, political and historical context.
- Consolidate advanced research, critical and reflective thinking and writing skills by evaluating key ideas and concepts.
- • How visual culture shapes our understanding of what is ‘nature’.
- • The Western landscape tradition.
- • How traditional landscape has been challenged by First Nations care for Country through art
- • Land art.
- • Environmental ethics.
- • ‘Nature’ Photography and social activism.
- • Contemporary art and climate emergency.
Our understanding of what is ‘nature’ or ‘natural’ is embedded in systems of value that are thoroughly mediated by representations in art and visual culture. In Western philosophical traditions, ‘nature’ has been understood as separate from ‘culture’ and as such more easily cast as a resource to be exploited for the benefit of humans. First Nations peoples have a more relational integrated worldview where human beings are but one component of a complex and ever-changing web of relationships. In this subject, you explore how these ideas are shaped by and reflected in various visual approaches over time, and critically consider the role that visualisations of ‘nature’ play in processes of social change. You focus on: the Western landscape tradition and its transformation at the encounter with Indigenous representations of Country; the influence of land art in its many manifestations on how we conceive of human/nature relations; and the long history and contemporary examples of artistic projects and interventions driven by the desire for environmental justice.
- Case Study 1 (1000 words equiv.) (25%)
- Case Study 2 (1000 words) (25%)
- Research essay (2000 words) (50%)
For textbook details check your university's handbook, website or learning management system (LMS).
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Entry requirements
Others
Past La Trobe University students who have previously completed ARH3ENV (From The Sublime To Activism: Art and The Environment) are ineligible to enrol in this subject.
Pre-requisites: Students must have completed 60 credit points of Level one or Level two subjects.
Additional requirements
No additional requirements
Study load
- 0.125 EFTSL
- This is in the range of 10 to 12 hours of study each week.
Equivalent full time study load (EFTSL) is one way to calculate your study load. One (1.0) EFTSL is equivalent to a full-time study load for one year.
Find out more information on Commonwealth Loans to understand what this means to your eligibility for financial support.
What to study next?
Once you’ve completed this subject it can be credited towards one of the following courses
UndergraduateLAT-BUS-DEG
UndergraduateLAT-ART-DEG
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