Reflections on Reclamation through Art

Abstract

Industrial interventions in the landscape leave their imprint in a permanent way, but there remain options on how to deal with land even at that point in time. In this essay, three alternatives are considered: leaving such sites as they are, restoring them to a condition resembling their original state, or transforming them into artworks. The author focuses in particular on the third option in order to determine to what degree it is possible for artistic reclamation to redeem such blights in the landscape.

  … the work of art is beautiful

to the degree that it opposes

its own order to that of reality … .

Herbert Marcuse, 1978, p. 64

Notes

Notes

¹ I apply the general principle, argued for in Heyd (2001), that any story that leads us to attend to nature is relevant in the aesthetic appreciation of the natural environment. For further development of the topic of cultural interventions in nature, see Heyd (2007).

² On this debate see, e.g., Elliot (1997), Katz (1992), and Gunn (1991).

³ For further discussion of this art form and additional references see Heyd (2002).

⁴ For a listing of such sites, see, for example, Frost-Kumpf (1995).

⁵ See, for example, Marter (1994) and Murray (1991).

⁶ See Immen (1998).

⁷ It occupies four acres and overlooks the Boeing Information, Space, and Defense Center in the valley below.

⁸ Also see Heyd (1991).

⁹ For further discussion of the notion of heterotopias, see Heyd (2002).

¹⁰ I am indebted to Lisa Edwards for stimulating discussions concerning this artwork. A significantly different approach to these issues has appeared in Heyd (1998). Related Spanish versions have been published as ‘Después de explotar las minas: subsanar, llorar y honrar la tierra’, Centro Cultural Canadá, No. 20 (2004), pp. 66–71, and ‘Más allá de la minería: (la)mentar, (en)mendar, y (re)memoriar Pachamama’, Círculo Hermenéutico, No. 5; available at http://www.circulohermeneutico.tk (accessed 20 February 2006).