Photographing the Anthropocene

How have artists been informed and influenced by the natural world? This course will examine how photographic artists have responded to nature, ecology, and the environment. Augmented by literary texts by artists, scientists, poets, and ecologists, we will explore how close-looking might inform an artist’s practice regarding the living environment - its bounty - and its degradation. Readings include texts by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Masanobu Fukuoka, Robert Macfarlane, Terry Tempest Williams, Rebecca Solnit, Barry Lopez, John McPhee, Akira Hasegawa, and others. Calling on a canon of photographic works from around the globe, students will study book-length photographic essays whose makers have seen art as a form of praise of the natural world and those who investigate the relationship between art and environmental activism. Susan Derges; Meghann Riepenhoff; Masahisa Fukashe; Pedro David; Stephen Gill; Ron Jude; Dornith Doherty; David Maisel, Zhao Renhui; Mandy Barker; Pablo Lopez Luz are some of the artists studied. The course will start by exploring techniques photographers have used over the past two centuries to respond to the natural world’s beauty and complexity. During the second half of the term, we will examine how artists have depicted shrinking natural landscapes, environmental destruction, and global warming and why they might question human centrality in the sentient world. Students will produce a semester-long photographic project on an ecological theme. This course will start by exploring techniques photographers have used over the past century to respond to the natural world’s beauty and complexity. During the second half of the term, we will examine how contemporary photographers are depicting shrinking natural landscapes, environmental destruction, and global warming and why some artists are beginning to question human centrality in the sentient world.