“Shaking Hands with the Landscape” will be the featured exhibit in the Anne Kittrell Art Gallery (fourth floor of the Arkansas Union) now until Jan. 30. The gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

This exhibit is the work of the Patterns, Perceptions, and Processes Landscape Architecture studio with professors Carl Alan Smith, Noah Billing and Kimball Erdman. Collaborations included professor emeritus Randy Hester from UC-Berkeley, a globally recognized expert in the field of landscape architecture, the U.S. National Parks Service, and Fayetteville Natural Heritage.

Students completed several projects all related to their perceptions and understanding of Mount Kessler near Fayetteville. The mountain will be the site of a new regional park and conservation areas.  Included in the exhibit are sketches, photography, paintings and designs completed at Mount Kessler or in the studio, and intend to provide an understanding of the mountain beyond its physical character – incorporating deeper readings of place and aesthetic value.

The aim of the Patterns, Perceptions, and Process class is to engage perceptual skills and readings of the landscape and their weaving with pertinent social and natural systems in the generation of design. The vertical studio offered students a unique opportunity to investigate deeply personal human-environmental relationships. In addition, the students developed the ability to capture the poetics of a place and  weave it into considerations of how a landscape will be developed, managed, or conserved for its own sake, and for the enrichment of the lives of those affected by the land.

For questions about the exhibit please contact Chas Thompson, UP adviser, at ct003@uark.edu

This event is sponsored by University programs through the Office of Student Activities and is supported by the Student Activities Fee.  For special accommodations due to disability please contact the Office of Student Activities, osa@uark.edu or call 479-575-5255.