AHT 226T Gardens and Art (Rome)
Gardens condense world views that balance environmental and human agency reflective of a given age and society. Some were designed to reflect an imperious order, others to display a playful mindfulness, when some chose to embrace the monstruous, the sublime, and the wasteland. A certain art is required to organize and manage the actors of enclosed gardens: plants, flowers, trees, but also rocks, water, wind, in a sculptural design that might involve sight, smell, touch, sound, and sometimes taste. On the one hand, students are introduced to a history of garden design, paying particular attention to cosmological visions and social contexts through case studies in Europe, Asia and Africa. In parallel, the course presents a range of contemporary artistic interventions with garden spaces and histories, in an age of increasing environmental imbalance and planetary awareness, in which the decision to garden can offer a path to nurture an active engagement with the present. The course includes a travel component to Rome.