Undergraduate Course: Environmental Art (ARCH08066)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 8 (Year 2 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | In an era of significant environmental change and concern, environmental art offers a particular lineage of artistic practice revealing the dynamic qualities of the environment we interact with and rely on. This course will consider comparative modes of practice, exploring a range of process-oriented and time-based practices deployed by environmental artists. Precedents will draw from contemporary environmental art practices, including artists working in the fields of land-art, eco-art and conceptual art. From this theoretical foundation, the course offers students an experimental space to develop their own practice-based explorations. Students will identify environmental issues they feel are important, then relate these to a site where they will deploy their own creative methods and tools as an experimental process of interpretation and engagement. |
| Course description |
Environmental art is creative field that addresses ecological and societal issues within our shared environment. With its origins in land art, environmental art represents a critical shift in the definition of art; to abandon the fixation on object-centred experience towards experimental approaches that open-up a stronger sense of environmental dynamics and inter-relationships.
This course explores how artists creatively deploy site-based tools and methods to experimentally reveal the transient and ephemeral qualities of environmental phenomena. In this course we will explore precedents from artists working across a telescopic range of scales; of the cosmic, climatic, seismic, atmospheric, biomorphic, to the microscopic. These precedents will introduce a range of theoretical ideas; on how the environment is experienced and imagined; and what environmental artists do to address critical questions through their practice.
From this theoretical foundation, the course offers students a creative space for experimentation, allowing students to test out new forms of practice derived from an understanding of environmental art. This can include a range of spatial articulations across visual, physical, sound, performance or textual forms, amongst other approaches. Evaluation will place emphasis on process and practice, rather than product and outcome, where experimentation, improvisation, speculation and activism are encouraged. Students will identify the focus for their own practice-based enquiry, while being encouraged to work in-situ; considering how a chosen site relates to contemporary environmental issues.
Through weeks 1-8, a series of combined lecture/seminar sessions (2hrs per week) will present a range of ideas, ethical considerations and experimental forms of practice, from which each student will evolve their own process of creative exploration. Across the semester, individual and group tutorials will support each student in the development of their proposal, from conception through to implementation. Students will undertake self-directed fieldwork, amounting to at least 3 days. A detailed schedule will be communicated through Learn, with teaching and learning activities timetabled as one morning per week.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | Environmental Art is a practice-based course which may require students to purchase materials depending on the type of project. This will vary dependent on the type of project and form of practice. Not all projects will require materials or additional costs. A Budget of £50 is recommended. |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2026/27, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 6,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 9,
Fieldwork Hours 21,
Feedback/Feedforward Hours 1,
Summative Assessment Hours 1,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
158 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
This course has 3 components of assessment.
1) Statement Poster: 1 page text/images, 20%, Week 7, assessed against all learning outcomes
2) Visual Narrative, 10-15 A4 pages, 50%, Exam Diet, assessed against all learning outcomes
3) Reflective text, 1000-1100 words, 30%, Exam Diet, assessed against all learning outcomes
All Learning outcomes are weighted equally. All components are individually assessed. All components must be passed.
Further Information:
1) Statement Poster: submitted in week 7 the statement poster should comprise a summary outline of your chosen site, how this relates to specific environmental issues and how you propose to use experimental practice to elucidate these issues. The statement poster should be graphically hybrid, including text and images. This should include at least one image that either presents the site related to the issues being explored, or an early stage experimental work. Text should include a 100-150 word summary statement, outlining key ideas. This component will be assessed against all learning outcomes at 20%. This summative assessment is an important prompt in identifying the theoretical and practical grounds of your project, from which you will receive written and verbal feedback.
2) Visual Narrative: within a 10-15 illustrated pamphlet your visual narrative should present the evolution of your creative process, including stages of fieldwork, early-stage experimentation, leading up to more refined experimental works. A summary of precedents that inform your work can be included at the start of this narrative. Short annotations can be included to explain each stage or work; however, the visual narrative should be configured without the need for lengthy textual explanations
If the form of experimentation utilises textual methods, these can be presented in the narrative as equivalent to visual methods. Other forms of non-visual practice can be included in various forms, such as links to sound files. Examples of visual narratives by artists will be presented in lectures, while the course syllabus will include links to available resources for the production of physical, mixed-media or digital formats.
3) Reflective text: within 1000-1100 words, provide a textual overview of the project in relation to precedents that inform your work, how this builds a rationale that responds to contemporary environmental issues, and how your creative work elucidates these in relation to a chosen site. The reflective text should cross reference the visual narrative, with the aim of providing a clear outline of ideas, theories and issues informing the development and purpose of the project. While the reflective text is assessed at 30% it is important in providing the rationale for the visual narrative.
Summary of assessment criteria: LO1 places emphasis on your ability to critically identify environmental issues, while using precedents to establish a form of experimental practice. LO2 then asks how you utilise this form of experimental practice in regard of these issues in relation to a chosen site. LO3 evaluates the manner in which you configure a visual narrative, allied with a clearly articulated rationale of the various stages your project evolves through. To reiterate the course description: Evaluation will place emphasis on process and practice, rather than product and outcome, where experimentation, improvisation, speculation and activism are encouraged. The assessment criteria will be further outlined in the course syllabus and discussed within lectures and tutorials.
Resubmission Information
The resubmission arrangements for this course are as follows:
The resubmission task for assessment component 1 is Statement Poster, 1 page text/images, 20% assessed against all learning outcomes
The resubmission task for assessment component 2 is Visual Narrative, 10-15 A4 pages, 50% assessed against all learning outcomes
The resubmission task for assessment component 3 is Reflective text, 1000-1100 words, 30%, assessed against all learning outcomes.
Students will resubmit to the aims of the original course brief.
Students will receive further resubmission information as per University regulations as necessary.
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| Feedback |
Formative Feedback
The formative feedback journey on this course will include early-stage group tutorials where you will have the opportunity to present and discuss your initial ideas; inviting verbal feedback from the course tutor and your peers. There will be one early-stage formative submission from which you will receive written feedback, followed by tutorials to ensure you are clear on the aims and practicalities of your proposed project. In week 7 there will be a summative assessment from which written feedback will provided. This will be followed by group and individual tutorials through the latter stages of the course, helping you to refine the project towards final assessment. This feedback journey will have particular prompts across the semester to help you evolve your proposal and its implementation. Those prompts will be set out clearly in course material and discussed via lectures.
Summative Feedback
On submission of the all three components, you will be provided with written feedback by the course organiser, as per University regulations. In relation to the aims and assessment criteria for this course, feedback will help you understand the significance and nature of experimentation allied to critical issues in environmental practice, useful for you to further reflect on and develop in your learning journey beyond the course.
Summative feedback will be provided according to University regulations.
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| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Conduct a critical comparative appraisal of creative practices which relate to particular environmental issues to inform a process of experimental practice
- Apply improvisation and invention in the use of creative practice to elucidate environmental issues through the interpretation of a chosen site
- Synthesise and rationalise the aims and outcomes of the creative process in regard to the contextual relevance of the project
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Reading List
Barad, Karen. (1996). Meeting the Universe Halfway: Realism and Social Constructivism without Contradiction. In L. Nelson, H. & Nelson, J. (Eds.), Feminism,
Science and the Philosophy of Science (pp. 161-194). Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Dolphijn, Rick. and van der Tuin, Iris. (2012). New Materialism: Interviews & Cartographies. Open Humanities Press.
Haraway, Donna (2016). Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham: Duke University Press.
Mah, Kai. and Rivers, Patrick. L. (2022). Situated Practices in Architecture and Politics. University of British Columbia Press.
Rendell, Jane. (2008). Space, Place, and Site. In: Cartiere, C. & Willis, S. (Eds), Critical Spatial Arts Practice. London: Routledge.
Online resource: The Land Art Generator https://landartgenerator.org/ |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Curiosity: evaluate a range of precedents to identify relevant concepts and theories related to environmental art, using these ideas to inspire an experimental form of critical practice.
Adaptivity: select a site and related environmental issue, while planning and effectively implementing a process of creative fieldwork with confidence in dealing with dynamic circumstances.
Communication: have an awareness in the discussion and articulation of creative forms of practice, while effectively conveying these through a graphic (visual narrative) submission.
Reflection: consider decisions and outcomes of your experimental practice, using a textual (reflective text) submission that succinctly communicates the project and its underpinning rationale, including personal values.
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| Keywords | Site-specific,experimental practice,fieldwork,environmental-art,Reflective thinking |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Mr Ross McLean
Tel: (0131 6)51 5796
Email: r.maclean@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Chloe Hancock
Tel: (0131 6)50 4124
Email: chancock@ed.ac.uk |
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