Landscape Experience: Seminar in Land/Art
MIT's graduate seminar examines land as a genre, theme, and medium in art and architecture over the last five decades, focusing mainly on work made within the United States. Students study how depictions and uses of land intersect with property law, power structures, non-U.S. artistic traditions, and the legacies of colonial expansion, including how the term landscape itself carries shifting political and philosophical meanings. The course, offered through MIT OpenCourseWare, includes a syllabus, weekly reading assignments drawn from art history and critical theory, and discussion-based sessions examining specific artists and sites working in land art and environmental architecture. Materials are free to access online, with no certificate offered. The seminar format suits students already familiar with art history who want a focused, discussion-driven look at how artists and architects have treated land as both subject and material.