A Portable Landscape

Subject Area

This activity has been designed for the Visual Arts curriculum in a unit on three-dimensional media. Students are to design and execute a sculptural landscape that is fitted inside a portable carrying case. This is designed to allow students to express some aspect of themselves or their environment. The case is to be of garbage quality, that is, the enclosure must have been obtained from a dump, trash can, or attic. The lid will contain a two-dimensional image and the lower section will be formed with found or natural objects. The two components are to be integrated into one unified work of art.

Learning Outcomes

Teaching, learning and evaluation will focus on the student’s ability to:

• Design and construct a portable landscape;
  
• Demonstrate awareness that physical and cultural environment’s influence the function and form of artifacts;
  
• Control materials and tools;
  
• Create and follow a plan through to a finished product;
• Visually interpret a theme through the medium of a portable landscape.
  

Materials

The materials required for this activity depend on the media chosen by the the students, but may include: plaster, wire mesh, and paints. Remind students that all materials must be from post-consumer sources. Discarded paint, paper, wood, wire, bits of consumer products are all acceptable materials for this activity. Examples of the work of other students, other cultures, and other time periods are also essential for students to help them to understand the options and variables available to them through this activity.

Timing

This activity will take approximately two weeks to complete. The first week is taken up with the class introduction and discussion, individual research and design. The second week is reserved for the construction of the artifacts, class presentations and discussions.

Background

The case or container is a potentially powerful metaphor, especially for environmental themes. A cigar box can be metaphorically presented as a symbol of pollution, while the expression like “sardines in a can” represents the idea of overcrowding. Both of these containers can, for the artist, represent environmental themes relating to population and industrialization. Cases are also used for a variety of purposes in various cultures and societies, and, as such, they present an opportunity for rich artistic expression. A case may be used to contain something sacred, or at least very precious—as with coffins, and jewellry boxes.

In this activity, students must first decide what they feel is symbolically important and deserves to be preserved and protected, or perhaps contained and prevented from escaping.

Many religions have sacred objects which are housed in significant boxes; the Jewish ark that contains the covenant of Abraham, Russian Orthodox Icons, Japanese Dibutsu (Buddahs). Students will be able to supply more examples.
“Pandora’s box” is another powerful box with associated meanings that are relevant in an environmental context. Many people see the powerful knowledge which has emerged recently, such as nuclear power and genetic engineering, as a potential a Pandora’s box, which once opened unleashes all manner of unexpected results.

Cases which open and close evoke questions about the nature of Earth. Is the global ecosystem open or closed? What are the implications of living in a closed system? What significance does the concept of closure have for humanity? What significance does the concept of containment have to a species which prides itself on breaking through all barriers?
The core of the romantic ideal, as expressed in the poetry and art of William Blake, is that freedom, the essence of life, is to break loose from all of the chains which bind us. Modern artists claim this tradition for their own even while they reject most others; the generations of the late Twentieth century have accepted this unquestioningly.
Finally, cases often have locks. What are the locks and what are the keys?

References

Marcel Duchamp. Boite-en-valise. 1938. Trans. by George Hamilton. New Haven: Ready-made Press, 1957.
Duchamp, Marcel. Definitely Marcel Duchamp. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993.
Lyotard, Jean Francois. Duchamp’s transformers: a book. Venice, Ca.: Lapis Press, 1990.

Classroom Development

1. Introduce students to the themes to be developed in this activity. Words and ideas such as sacred, protected, protecting, freedom, struggle, closure, locks, locking and unlocking, open and closed systems (intellectual, religious, and environmental) can be written on the board or presented orally. Have the class, in whatever size group it wishes, brainstorm the personal, environmental, social, and political dimensions of these ideas. Inform students that the aim is to discover an issue that they can address in a work containing the elements outlined in the Background section above.
   
2. Discuss symbol-making and interpreting symbols. Examine how an artificial environment can express natural symbols. Have students sketch ideas that try to symbolically illustrate the environmental message which they would like to communicate in a contained space.
   
3. Discuss the plastic nature of sculpture, and outline how students are to approach their own design. Students are to research and design their own portable landscape. Make sure that they keep a complete log outlining the research, ideas, influences, and intellectual processes that go into their work. They are to express some aspect of themselves and/or their relationship to the material(s) they are working with and their environment (either “natural” or altered by humans). This expression must be documented by the student so that the success of the translation from concept to completed work can be properly understood by the student and critiqued in class. As part of this log, each student is to present a proposal for the miniature portable installation which they plan to construct.
   
4. Students should be given an opportunity to “forage” for materials for constructing their “landscapes.”
   
5. Students are expected to complete their work in class so that the instructor can make sure that no non-reused materials are used. Remember that the prohibition against new materials include glues, hardware, and paint.
   
6. Students present and discuss their art work. Each student should be ready to explain the symbolic content of their work within the context of their notes.
   

Cross-disciplinary links

English—William Gibson’s novel Count Zero (Ace, 1986) would extend this activity into the English curriculum. The main theme of the novel is that of an artificial entity called Wintermute who seeks to escape from physical and psychic bondage. This AI (artificially intelligent computer program) is unknowingly sought by an art dealer named Marly who is looking for the mysterious artist of highly prized “Boxes” identical in spirit and construction to the ones that the students will be creating. The AI is the artist that Marly is seeking. This novel is suitable for senior students only. The activities “Johnney Mnemonic” and “Novel Study” also consider the works of Canadian writer William Gibson.