Community works
Because our work is made in nature and is about regenerative design, we are occasionally asked to work with the public on community projects.
Interacting with others to make land art in natural landscapes is always rewarding because everyone enjoys it so much and there is deep learning found in engaging with nature’s ephemeral materials and system design principles.
Community leaders and educators say there is no better way to learn about systems than experiential learning from nature.
Primary school land art project, June 2022
Philippa and I worked with young children at Te Kura O Take Karara primary school to make an environmental sculpture at Bremner Bay, Lake Wanaka. This is our local beach where we have made many sculptures over our 18 years living in Wanaka.
Engaging with nature and each other in a natural place and being creative is learning from nature and that is what our art practice is about. Passing this on to very young children is very satisfying and a lot of fun.
“There is no substitute for the deep learning that unfolds through building a connection to our people and place,” said their teacher Estelle Moore.
Thanks to Estelle Moore, Jodie Howard and the school for their initiative in making this happen.
Wild Dunedin - Community land art, April 2022
The Dunedin Festival of Nature was timed to coincide with International Earth Day. We were commissioned to open the festival with a community event where we marked out a 25m diameter circle on St Kilda beach at low tide. Volunteers, including art students were enlisted to fill the circle with driftwood, kelp and other material they could find. The incoming tide washed the ephemeral sculpture away as planned - the material returned back to the sea from where it came, thereby demonstrating Nature’s cyclical processes.
Ohio student land art workshop, January 2019
This event was commissioned for a group of 14 students from Bowling Green University Ohio. We organised a three-day experiential workshop in environmental land art. After a presentation of our work at our studio we gathered at a local wetland fed by a natural spring for the students to create their own environmental sculptures from natural materials. The variety of materials and forms they chose was diverse, each of the students expressing their ideas and points of view. Photographs and video recording were part of the process. Some of the group collaborated with us to finish a sculpture made from raupo stems and flax thread which we floated on the lake and photographed from the bank above the wetland.
Ohio students’ Land Art Workshop.
Licensing: Sculpture images are licensed for use worldwide
Prints: Fine art prints can be purchased internationally
Copyright: Martin Hill all rights reserved