Details about the event
Supported by the Ph.D. Program in the Illinois School of Architecture and the Department of Landscape Architecture, this symposium is organized by graduate students across disciplines at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. What brought us together is a shared recognition of the need for critical engagement with our own scholarship as well as our own agency in the spatial production for intellectual curiosity.
The symposium features twelve papers, including several collaborative works, revolving around two conceptual pillars—space and nature—so fundamental to questions concerning our world. These papers are organized into four thematic categories: (Un)Intentional Heritage, The Ends of Landscape, Curating the ‘Self,’ and Resistance and Resilience. Each session explores intersections of space and nature that compel us to reflect and intervene amidst the pressing crises of our time. The abstracts for each session are detailed in the sections below.
Program
| TBH 315 | |
| 08:20-08:50 | Breakfast |
| 08:50-09:00 | Introduction |
| 09:00-10:30 | Session ONE / (Un)Intentional Heritage |
| Session Chair: Susan Ask | |
| Stephen Ferroni, “Heritage Making with Nature in Baja California Sur” | |
| Alec Calder Johnson, “Meunier’s Horseback Shrimper and the Spacetime of Obsolescence” | |
| Colter Wehmeier, “The Interpretive Nature of Space: Generative Ambiguity in Heritage Visualization” | |
| Discussion | |
| 10:30-10:40 | Break |
| 10:40-12:10 | Session TWO / The Ends of Landscapes |
| Session Chair: Stephen Ferroni | |
| Yajie Hui, “Space and Nature in French Orientalist Landscape: Picturing Algeria in the Nineteenth Century” | |
| Taisuke L. Wakabayashi, “Technics and Terrain: Landscaping Cybernetic Nature” | |
| Susan Ask, “nature at work: concepts of natural and working land in American environmental policy” | |
| Discussion | |
| 12:10-01:00 | Lunch |
| 01:00-02:30 | Session THREE / Curating the ‘Self’ |
| Session Chair: Kei Kato | |
| Rebekah Gooding, “The Artist and Their Studio: Self-Reflexivity and Self-Portraiture in Adolph Menzel’s Studio Wall Paintings” | |
| Aysenur Senel, “The Ottoman Harem: Horizontal and Vertical Receptions Between the 16th and 19th Centuries” | |
| Delnaaz Kharadi, “Parsi in Curation: Architecture of Portraits and Space of Hybridized Identity” | |
| Discussion | |
| 02:30-02:40 | Break |
| 02:40-04:10 | Session FOUR / Resistance, Resilience |
| Session Co-Chairs: Asalah Aranki & Delnaaz Kharadi | |
| Kshitij Tewari & Dr. Mariela Fernandez, “Nature-based Recreation and Biopsychosocial Resilience in LGBTQ+ Individuals” | |
| Kei Kato, “Oceans that matter: Climate Coloniality and the Ocean” | |
| Grace Maria Eberhardt & Andrew Joseph Stec, “Indigenous Gardens and University Wastelands” | |
| Discussion | |
| 04:10-04:15 | Closing Statement |
| TBH 14 Blicharski Atrium | |
| 04:20-05:00 | Reception |
| TBH 134 Plym Auditorium | |
| 05:00-06:40 | Keynote Lecture / Architecture Lecture Series Spring 2025 |
| D. Fairchild Ruggles | |
| “Land, Water, Plants, and Human Society in the Mediterranean: A Material History” | |
| 06:40-06:45 | Conclusion |