The Copenhagen Landscape Lectures is a public lecture series for everyone who is interested in how we shape our physical environment, across cities and landscapes, education and practice.

Spring 2018

”Outside the Garden” is the title of two events in the Copenhagen Landscape Lectures arranged by Department of Geosciences and Naturel Resource Management. These lectures feature four artists that all relate to different landscapes in their works, and there will be two artists in dialogue at each lecture; Maria Finn & Camilla Berner 26.2, and Pia Rönicke & Nanna Debois Buhl 23.4.

The methods and tools by which we document our interaction with certain landscapes, be it urban nature in Copenhagen, man made sand dunes in Køge or rare plants in Mexico, are an integral part of the works developed by these artists. But what these works also have in common is an awareness of how the interplay between developers, users, as well as explorers, defines how we label these places.

The lectures are in English, will take place at Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management (IGN), Rolighedsvej 23, 1958 Frederiksberg C, and are open for everyone. The lectures are followed by an informal reception.

Participation is free of charge and you do not need to register
Contact: Maria Finn, post doc, mmf@ign.ku.dk

More information will follow on www.landscapelectures.dk

Copenhagen Landscape Lecture committee:
Natalie M. Gulsrud, Rikke Munck Petersen og Svava Riesto

February 26 at 16:00, Auditorium Landskab, Rolighedsvej 23, Frederiksberg: Camilla Berner & Maria Finn

About the artists:

Camilla Berner

Berner takes an interest in plants growing in particular urban settings, which she collects and then presents in carefully orchestrated works. In 2014 she developed her project “Unnoticed News” where she registered the plants growing on the temporary building site at Kongens Nytorv in central Copenhagen. The formal and historical garden at the center of the square with a knight statue of Christian V in its centre was at the time temporarily closed off and covered with unruly plants. Short reports in a newspaper format about developments at the site which could be read in boxes specially produced for the purpose and to be found at Kongens Nytorv, as well as at the Museum of Copenhagen and Den Frie – Centre for Contemporary Art. Part of the newspaper Berner created flower bouquets out of these plants, which she depicted in photographs. Presented in this manner the images not only displayed the actual variety of species that had arrived by it self, but also made clear the conflict in interests that was at stake in the view on nature at this particular site.

Maria Finn

Finn, in her project “Forgetful Nature,” investigates two vacant lots, the Beauvais Lot in Copenhagen and the Ellstorp Lot in Malmö, that both have been in use for recreational purposes, without much interference. This has resulted in a rich diversity of plants growing high, while simultaneously offering a less organized place for recreation. These two vacant lots offer a unique environment that challenges our usual conception of nature in a city. But simultaneously they also trigger our imagination since they offer a possibility to imagine the unseen and unexpected. They thus add to a cities vocabulary in an unexpected manner by presenting the disorganized as a possibility.

April 23 at 16:00, Auditorium von Langen, Rolighedsvej 23, Frederiksberg: Pia Rönicke & Nanna Debois Buhl

About the artists:

Pia Rönicke

Rönicke presented in her exhibition “The Cloud Document” at Overgaden in 2017 the result of her research about the Danish botanist Frederik Liebmann’s journey to Mexico 1841 – 43, where he collected over 50.000 plants. To update his research and the tools that he used, Rönicke her self travelled to Mexico, where she, together with two Mexican botanists, collected the same kind of plants that Liebmann had found, as well as additional species. These were gathered in a similar manner as Liebmann used, with visual DNA registrations of the plants as an addition to the dried examples. Furthermore Rönicke documented the trip into this landscape in a dual projected video, and presented together, the different forms of documentation raise questions concerning representation, authenticity and memory.

Nanna Debois Buhl

Debois Buhl has in her work “intervals and forms of stones of stars” mapped the environment in Køge Bay Beach Park, a large man-made beach landscape, with tools that were used in the early stages of photography. William Henry Fox Talbot used cameraless
photographic methods to depict objects such as plants, and August Strindberg experimented with “celestograms” with which he hoped to capture the stars. Debois Buhl uses these cameraless techniques to capture plants, insects, and particles in the landscape in Køge Bay Beach Park today, and in this pro­cess opens up for thoughts on the human intervention in this area. The historic photographic methods make us rediscover the content of the landscape and question how it came to appear the way it does today. Through photographs, field notes, and conversations, her artist’s book “intervals and forms of stones of stars” further unfolds the reflections on this anthropocene biotope, its botany, and its cultural context.

Juni 13 at 10-11 am, Auditorium Landskab,
2nd Floor, Rolighedsvej 23, Frederiksberg C

Gareth Doherty

Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994) remains one of the most important landscape architects in the history of the field. This talk is based on a collection of Burle Marx’s lectures that paint a picture of Burle Marx not just as a gardener, artist and botanist — as he is generally known — but as a landscape architect whose ambition was to bring radical change to cities and society.

Gareth Doherty is Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design where he is Director of the Master in Landscape Architecture.

All are welcome. We would like to encourage scholars, students, practitioners and anyone interested in landscape architecture to attend.

The lectures have been made possible thanks to donations from
Novo Nordisk Fonden