On November 19, Graham Foundation grantee Susan Herrington will discuss her new book, Cornelia Hahn Oberlander: Making the Modern Landscape—the first biography of Canadian landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, one of the most influential landscape architects of the twentieth century. We are also pleased to welcome Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, who will be joining Herrington for the presentation of the new book.

Cornelia Hahn Oberlander is a landscape architect who has been a pioneer in the fields of sustainability and ecologically-sensitive planning for more than sixty years. Born in 1921, Oberlander fled Nazi Germany at the age of eighteen with her family, and went on to become one of the few women to graduate from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design in the late 1940s, where she briefly overlapped with American landscape architect Lawrence Halprin. She spent her early years working with modern architects such as Louis Kahn and Dan Kiley, and has continued to collaborate with preeminent architects across Canada and the United States. Her landscape projects include the Robson Square Provincial Government complex and Courthouse in Vancouver (Architect: Arthur Erickson, 1974-1983); the Children's Creative Center for Expo '67 in Montreal, 1967; the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia (Architect: Arthur Erickson, 1976); and the Vancouver Public Library (Architects: Moshe Safdie Architects, 1995), among others. She is the recipient of many honors and awards, including the International Federation of Landscape Architects Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award (2011) and the American Society of Landscape Architects Medal (2012).

Susan Herrington’s research concerns the history and theory of designed landscapes. She is the author of On Landscapes (Routledge, 2009) and Schoolyard Park: 13-Acres International Design Competition (University of British Columbia Centre for Landscape Research, 2002), and has published articles in Architecture and Ideas, Footprint, Landscape Journal, and Landscape Research, as well as numerous chapters in books. She was awarded a Graham Foundation grant for her recent book, Cornelia Hahn Oberlander: Making the Modern Landscape (University of Virginia Press, 2014). Currently, she is writing Landscape Theory in Design to be published by Routledge, and is conducting research on the architect Oskar Stonorov and Walter Reuther, former president of the United Auto Workers Union. Herrington is professor of landscape architecture and architecture at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

Related Grant: Susan Herrington, Cornelia Hahn Oberlander: Making the Modern Landscape (University of Virginia Press, 2014).

Image: Expo '67, An Environment for Creative Play and Learning. Courtesy of Canadian Centre for Architecture, Cornelia Hahn Oberlander Archives.

For more information on the exhibition, Experiments in Environment: The Halprin Workshops, 1966-1971, click here.

Under the overarching title, The Future is Not What it Used to Be, the 2nd Istanbul Design Biennial explores the potential of the design manifesto to envision and interrogate the future, now. In our contemporary context of rapid social and political change, how might design manifestos address larger issues while remaining grounded in everyday life? Could the manifesto move beyond its Western origins and incorporate ideas from across cultures? Are new forms of media generating new forms of manifestos? Zoë Ryan, John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago, and curator of the 2nd Istanbul Design Biennial, will discuss its making, which is on view through December 14, 2014.

Zoë Ryan is a curator and writer. She is the John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago where she is building the museum’s first collection of contemporary design and expanding its architecture collection. Her recent exhibitions include Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects (2012); Fashioning the Object: Bless, Boudicca, and Sandra Backlund (2012); Bertrand Goldberg: Architecture of Invention (2011); and Hyperlinks: Architecture and Design (2010). Prior to working at the museum, Ryan was Senior Curator at the Van Alen Institute in New York. Ryan has authored and edited numerous publications, including, Building with Water: Designs, Concepts, Visions (Birkhauser Press, 2010). Ryan is often called upon as a juror and critic and has lectured on her work internationally. She has served on the advisory committee of the Experimenta Design Biennial in Lisbon, and has been a juror for the National Design Awards, Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum and the Wheelwright Fellowship, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University. Ryan is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago and is a lecturer in the Art History Department of the School of the Art Institute.

This talk is presented in partnership with the Architecture & Design Society of the Art Institute of Chicago.

On November 8, Brooklyn-based artist and composer Robert A.A. Lowe will perform a new improvisation with voice, using a modular synthesizer amplified in quad sound.

Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe (b. 1975, Kansas City, MO) is an artist and composer who works with voice in the realm of spontaneous music, often under the moniker of Lichens. Interested in the physicality of sound, Lowe creates patch pieces using modular synthesizers and tonal vocalizations, both in live performance and recording. His music relies on the sensitivity of analogue modular systems to echo the organic nature of vocal expression in order to create a trance-like state and usher in a deeper listening through sound and feeling. Lowe has collaborated with Ben Russell, Ben Rivers, Sabrina Ratté, Rose Lazar, Nicolas Becker, Tarek Atoui, Evan Calder Williams, Ariel Kalma, Lucky Dragons, Doug Aitken, Hisham Akira Bharoocha, Patrick Smith, Monica Baptista, Kevin Martin, Chris Johanson, Tyondai Braxton, David Scott Stone and Rose Kallal, among others. Select performances include Doug Aitken's "Migration" happening at 303 Gallery (2008) and Princeton University (2010); "La Suite" for Serpentine Gallery (2012); "In the Wan Light of Napalm and Moon," a collaboration with Evan Calder Williams (2012); "Peradam" with Sabrina Ratté at EMPAC (2014); and Cinema du Réel at the Centre Georges Pompidou (2014).

This performance is presented in partnership with Lampo. Founded in 1997, Lampo is a non-profit organization for experimental music, sound art, and intermedia projects. Visit www.lampo.org.

Please note: Event entry is on a first-come, first-serve basis. Tickets do not guarantee entry, so please plan to arrive early. Doors will open at 7:30PM.

Now in their thirteenth season, The Seldoms create bold, thought-provoking dance that is driven by inquiry into contemporary issues, the history of art and ideas, and reflection on individual experiences. Known for their collaborations with visual artists, architects, composers, and fashion designers, the Chicago-based dance company has designed multi-disciplinary, site-specific performances in a variety of unconventional settings.

On November 5, The Seldoms will perform segments from their newest undertaking, RockCitizen—an inquiry into counterculture, rock music, and citizenship. In addition to the performance, The Seldoms' artistic director Carrie Hanson will lead a discussion about the multi-disciplinary, creative process behind the company's work.

The Seldoms are alchemists of artistic media who believe that movement—along with image, sound, text, and location—can expand action and environment into larger restless visions. Since 2001, the company has performed widely in Chicago, notably at the MCA, the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, and at The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago; at national venues including Joyce SoHo in New York; and internationally in Russia, Canada and Taiwan. The group has received numerous grants and awards, including a 2014 National Performance Network Creation Fund and a National Dance Project Production Grant.

Carrie Hanson, artistic director of The Seldoms, is a dance artist and educator. Since founding The Seldoms in 2001, she has made over twenty-five original works for the company. Interested in unconventional performance settings, she has placed dance in a cargo container, an Olympic-sized outdoor pool, and an architectural salvage store. She was a 2005 Chicago Dancemaker’s Forum Lab Artist, has twice been awarded an Illinois Arts Council Choreographic Fellowship, and received a Ruth Page Award for Performance. In 2012, Hanson was named one of “25 to Watch” by Dance Magazine.

Image: Photo Brian Kuhlmann

Related Links
The Seldoms
http://theseldoms.org

The Graham Foundation is pleased to continue its ongoing partnership with Lampo this fall with the premiere of Rene Hell’s “Bifurcating a Resounding No!” on Saturday, October 11. This latest project from Rene Hell draws from years of recorded sounds (acoustic instruments, field recordings, and voice) that the artist collected in cities across the U.S. and then shaped using various digital techniques.

Jeff Witscher a.k.a. Rene Hell (b. 1983, Long Beach, Calif.) is a visual artist, avid chess player, and music obsessive who has explored a variety of underground styles since his teens. His aesthetic choices, expressed over dozens of recordings released under many pseudonyms, have anticipated the shifts in U.S. experimental music spanning the last decade. Most recently, he received acclaim for synth albums Porcelain Opera and The Terminal Symphony (Type), a 2012 split release with Oneohtrix Point Never, and his newest recording, Vanilla Call Option (PAN). Witscher’s practice is peripatetic—roving styles, changing monikers and wide-ranging influences. Travel is central to Vanilla Call Option, with its digital palette constructed on the move between airports, performance spaces, and public libraries, to evoke the musique concrète of Bernard Parmegiani and the computer music of Charles Dodge. Witscher lives in Los Angeles.

This performance is presented in partnership with Lampo. Founded in 1997, Lampo is a non-profit organization for experimental music, sound art, and intermedia projects. Visit www.lampo.org. 

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