Creative Course / art and ecology
Creative Course - Art + Ecology
Art and Ecology is a six day course designed to help you develop the tools needed to extract creative ideas from your immediate landscape.
This is not depicting the landscape but engaging with it.
The location is specific to the high alpine desert of Almería in southern Spain inside the Parque Natural Sierra María-Los Vélez. The course is held at Cortijada Los Gázquez, creative retreat and eco-guest house, an off-grid and totally sustainable location.
*(a week at Cortijada Los Gázquez as opposed to a conventional hotel will off-set the carbon emissions from a return flight from northern europe)
You will be guided to make informed creative decisions as a consequence of studying the history and culture, (agrarian and otherwise) of the area, the climate in relation to climate change, flora and fauna, issues of sustainability through ecology systems and landscape character assessments.
As your ideas formulate we will consider how your work might manifest itself. For example, should your art work serve as a function to highlight issues such as global warming or plastic pollution? How sensitive is your proposal towards the local habitat? Has your explicit intervention in the landscape the opportunity to occupy a more functional roll?
We will also consider the roll of the artist as spokesperson for the environment. Here we have semi wild habitat and like most ‘backcountry’ it has been subject to the influence of man over centuries. As a consequence making art here, at this intersection between the environment and human activity, what is the artists relationship to the land? Is the environment an ecosystem which highlights socio political realities? Or is the artist an individual who possesses personal relationships to the earth? Can land be a metaphor or signifier to a higher understanding of the human condition?
At your disposal we have two studios and a workshop, 20 hectares (50 acres) of land to work with and access to 22,000 hectares (54.343 acres) of the Parque Natural Sierra María-Los Vélez. We welcome all media.
Our accommodation is vernacular, simple and comfortable. Our food is of a well travelled vegetarian. Expect your time here to be stimulating, enjoyable and deeply rewarding.
