Sense of Place
Essential Questions
1) How does energy production impact place?
2) How does your sense of place, environmental ethic and understanding of our energy needs influence your perception and decisions regarding energy production?
1) How does energy production impact place?
2) How does your sense of place, environmental ethic and understanding of our energy needs influence your perception and decisions regarding energy production?
Artist's Statement
This visual was meant to capture my sense of place that lies in the desert, the sky, and the forest.
Explaining my sense of place was challenging because I don't have one sense of place. This is shown in my abstract, above my paper. I reflected on why I don't have a rootedness to any particular place because there is no place that holds any familiarity. You see, the way I understand what a sense of place is, is to relate it to home. Or at least somewhere where you feel at home. I don't have a hometown or even a house that I can truly call home because most of my life has been lived in a lot of places.
To compensate for that which I don't have, I decided to look at this project from a larger perspective. I had to think back to moments where I felt something I can't really describe when I was in a place that made the memory unforgettable. Even if I'd only been there once. The places I love to be in are vast and empty with no other people around for miles.
The desert is the most familiar place because I've visited it countless times and most of my relatives live there. It's a beautiful part of the world that I think is under-appreciated, and in my visual the rock on the right side is meant to represent the rocky mesas found in the desert.
Currently living in a forest, I've felt the enchantment that it holds when I'm running on the trails in the evening and there's always a slight breeze. I feel overwhelmed with fresh air and an endless array of towering trees. It's impossible not to fawn over the beauty of the forest.
I knew that including the sky and space in my sense of place wouldn't really address the question because it's not somewhere you can physically be and remain. But I have spent so many nights(as we all have) staring up at the stars hanging in the clear dark sky. And the moon, oh the moon! This is a planet that I love more than my own. There is something about the glowing moon surrounded by billions of winking stars that just blows my mind. This majestic oblivion is something that I yearn to explore one day and be inundated in.
I am very content with my visual, and even though it's photoshop edited I think it captures exactly what my sense of place is. At least I hope other people see it and at least get some kind of curiosity as to what it means and decide to interpret it however they choose. That's the kind of effect I hope all my artwork has on others.
This visual was meant to capture my sense of place that lies in the desert, the sky, and the forest.
Explaining my sense of place was challenging because I don't have one sense of place. This is shown in my abstract, above my paper. I reflected on why I don't have a rootedness to any particular place because there is no place that holds any familiarity. You see, the way I understand what a sense of place is, is to relate it to home. Or at least somewhere where you feel at home. I don't have a hometown or even a house that I can truly call home because most of my life has been lived in a lot of places.
To compensate for that which I don't have, I decided to look at this project from a larger perspective. I had to think back to moments where I felt something I can't really describe when I was in a place that made the memory unforgettable. Even if I'd only been there once. The places I love to be in are vast and empty with no other people around for miles.
The desert is the most familiar place because I've visited it countless times and most of my relatives live there. It's a beautiful part of the world that I think is under-appreciated, and in my visual the rock on the right side is meant to represent the rocky mesas found in the desert.
Currently living in a forest, I've felt the enchantment that it holds when I'm running on the trails in the evening and there's always a slight breeze. I feel overwhelmed with fresh air and an endless array of towering trees. It's impossible not to fawn over the beauty of the forest.
I knew that including the sky and space in my sense of place wouldn't really address the question because it's not somewhere you can physically be and remain. But I have spent so many nights(as we all have) staring up at the stars hanging in the clear dark sky. And the moon, oh the moon! This is a planet that I love more than my own. There is something about the glowing moon surrounded by billions of winking stars that just blows my mind. This majestic oblivion is something that I yearn to explore one day and be inundated in.
I am very content with my visual, and even though it's photoshop edited I think it captures exactly what my sense of place is. At least I hope other people see it and at least get some kind of curiosity as to what it means and decide to interpret it however they choose. That's the kind of effect I hope all my artwork has on others.
Project Reflection
The process leading up to the exhibition for this project was very educational and informative. I feel that I understand the type of literature known as "Nature Writing" and "The Grand Style", writing that I never knew about. As a class, we read various texts taken from Edward Abbey's pieces of literature that portrayed his environmental ethic and his thoughts on how humans impact the earth. We annotated these readings as well as student's essays from the year prior. They took the approach to write this paper in various ways-which I think is because it was a difficult project. We spent about a week and a half doing these readings and it was the second week into the project that guest speakers started coming into Chemistry and talking about what they do contributing to the environment. They were all environmentalists who each had different environmental ethics. The ones who wanted to see progression and advancements were those with a more conservationist perspective. They all seemed to think that the land had intrinsic value but still believed in the production of energy sources like nuclear. They stated the downsides of using renewable resources like solar, wind, and hydroelectric because energy produced from those sources can't be constantly generated and therefore used. The guest speakers informed us about the gas emissions that have accumulated in the atmosphere and how they will have irreparable effects on the global climate.
There were two essential questions that we had to answer in our paper, which can be seen above. I now know what environmental ethics are and the various senses of place that people can have. After listening to the guest speakers and reading about Edward Abbey's environmental ethic as well as his sense of place I found out what my own perspective was; nature and all life has intrinsic value. Having lived places all with different landscapes and spending time with nature, I recognized that there are many places that give me a sense of belonging. I wanted people to understand-when they read my essay-what my sense of place was. I tried to illustrate my experiences in the desert and in the forest, how I felt about them and how I felt about the way humans treat nature. My purpose was not to bash on all the courses of action that mankind has taken to make the world "civilized" and "advanced" because I don't think that our intentions are wrong; I think that humans are an egotistical species that doesn't take into consideration the lives of other beings because we are blind. Some people are wide awake and see the problem, they understand the problem but they can't fix the problem; the problem is us. We live on this earth with millions of other life forms which we are, in fact, responsible for FYI. We took the role of the dominating race, the top of the food chain, the superiorities. But for some reason we neglect to care for the things that make our planet what it is. We trample our home as if we have another to turn to when things get at their worst. This fact disappoints me to a considerable extent, that I am apart of a race that will inevitably be the end of itself.
I'm not going to go on a rant here so I'll now talk about my personal growth during this project. It was challenging enough to write about my sense of place, I had to do some soul searching to be able to define and understand my sense of place. One day, I went running on my normal route but this time, when I was going through the forest to get back on the road, I was suddenly aware of my surroundings. I could hear the creaking of the trees and the wind passing behind me and the birds pecking at the tree trunks. I was listening to the sounds of the forest so I slowed my pace to hear better. I started walking backwards so I could see the sun drop below the mountains and feel the breeze on my face. It was enchanting, this feeling. No people around but instead other living things to take their place. Standing there, I thought about how clear the sky is at night and how bright the stars shine behind the branches. I decided that I would have the forest and the night sky in my visual. These parts of my visual I am most satisfied with because I think they do well to represent my sense of place.
Overall, I fancied this project. I liked that it was a joint project between Humanities and Chemistry, but I don't think they complimented each other well. Nothing really felt joint when we were working; it just seemed like we were doing separate things in each class. I understand how our work was related but they didn't have any similarities in my opinion. It was only the environmental ethic that put a joint aspect on the project between our classes. I didn't mind that they weren't as "combined" as they were meant to be, I think our final work and presentations at the exhibition were awesome.
Link to Chemistry Project
http://robdp.weebly.com/energy--place-project.html
The process leading up to the exhibition for this project was very educational and informative. I feel that I understand the type of literature known as "Nature Writing" and "The Grand Style", writing that I never knew about. As a class, we read various texts taken from Edward Abbey's pieces of literature that portrayed his environmental ethic and his thoughts on how humans impact the earth. We annotated these readings as well as student's essays from the year prior. They took the approach to write this paper in various ways-which I think is because it was a difficult project. We spent about a week and a half doing these readings and it was the second week into the project that guest speakers started coming into Chemistry and talking about what they do contributing to the environment. They were all environmentalists who each had different environmental ethics. The ones who wanted to see progression and advancements were those with a more conservationist perspective. They all seemed to think that the land had intrinsic value but still believed in the production of energy sources like nuclear. They stated the downsides of using renewable resources like solar, wind, and hydroelectric because energy produced from those sources can't be constantly generated and therefore used. The guest speakers informed us about the gas emissions that have accumulated in the atmosphere and how they will have irreparable effects on the global climate.
There were two essential questions that we had to answer in our paper, which can be seen above. I now know what environmental ethics are and the various senses of place that people can have. After listening to the guest speakers and reading about Edward Abbey's environmental ethic as well as his sense of place I found out what my own perspective was; nature and all life has intrinsic value. Having lived places all with different landscapes and spending time with nature, I recognized that there are many places that give me a sense of belonging. I wanted people to understand-when they read my essay-what my sense of place was. I tried to illustrate my experiences in the desert and in the forest, how I felt about them and how I felt about the way humans treat nature. My purpose was not to bash on all the courses of action that mankind has taken to make the world "civilized" and "advanced" because I don't think that our intentions are wrong; I think that humans are an egotistical species that doesn't take into consideration the lives of other beings because we are blind. Some people are wide awake and see the problem, they understand the problem but they can't fix the problem; the problem is us. We live on this earth with millions of other life forms which we are, in fact, responsible for FYI. We took the role of the dominating race, the top of the food chain, the superiorities. But for some reason we neglect to care for the things that make our planet what it is. We trample our home as if we have another to turn to when things get at their worst. This fact disappoints me to a considerable extent, that I am apart of a race that will inevitably be the end of itself.
I'm not going to go on a rant here so I'll now talk about my personal growth during this project. It was challenging enough to write about my sense of place, I had to do some soul searching to be able to define and understand my sense of place. One day, I went running on my normal route but this time, when I was going through the forest to get back on the road, I was suddenly aware of my surroundings. I could hear the creaking of the trees and the wind passing behind me and the birds pecking at the tree trunks. I was listening to the sounds of the forest so I slowed my pace to hear better. I started walking backwards so I could see the sun drop below the mountains and feel the breeze on my face. It was enchanting, this feeling. No people around but instead other living things to take their place. Standing there, I thought about how clear the sky is at night and how bright the stars shine behind the branches. I decided that I would have the forest and the night sky in my visual. These parts of my visual I am most satisfied with because I think they do well to represent my sense of place.
Overall, I fancied this project. I liked that it was a joint project between Humanities and Chemistry, but I don't think they complimented each other well. Nothing really felt joint when we were working; it just seemed like we were doing separate things in each class. I understand how our work was related but they didn't have any similarities in my opinion. It was only the environmental ethic that put a joint aspect on the project between our classes. I didn't mind that they weren't as "combined" as they were meant to be, I think our final work and presentations at the exhibition were awesome.
Link to Chemistry Project
http://robdp.weebly.com/energy--place-project.html