BOOK LAUNCH - "SCULPTURAL LANDFORMS"

SUMMARY OF THE RESEARCH ON SCULPTURAL LANDFORMS //

As part of the 4-year long fellowship programme at the Hungarian Academy of Arts (HAA, 2018-2022), I worked on the complex theme of "topography, spatial landforms, and artistic terrain design", which lies at the intersection of landscape architecture, sculpture and Land Art. Beyond the more technical landscaping methodology in the landscape architecture discipline, my research focuses on artistic landform sculpture, based on abstract sculpture, through theoretical research and practical exercises carried out with various student groups at the Institute of Landscape Architecture, Urban Planning and Garden Art, Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences. In 2019, I started an independent, elective course entitled "Contemporary Artistic Landforming", and held a related Workshop Day. I participated in several conferences presenting the background research (on the history of landscaping, prominent 20th century figures such as I. Noguchi, L. Halprin, Ch. Jencks, postmodern landform sculpture), which has also been published. I have also worked with our international and Hungarian Master's students on exciting landscape, terrain and design assignments, in which spatial experiences and creative spatial compositions based on their own experiences played a dominant role. One of the highlights of the 4 years was a 30-hour creative workshop week in February 2020 for 20 students in the GYIK Workshop Studio, and an exhibition based mainly on these material in March 2020 at FUGA, opened by my mentor Cs. Jakab and B. Szakács. The results of 33 exercises exhibited encompassed hundreds of works using a variety of fine art and modelling techniques: relief clay carvings and model drawings, cardboard spaces, canyons, terrain forms of playgrounds, playground design, post-mining landscapes, cubist drawings, plaster casts, soap sculptures and their accompanying sculpture park mock-ups, landscape prints, terraced landscapes, rice terrace watercolours, paper sculptures and paintings. Along with the 40 events on the HAA Scholarship website, these achievements are captured in this manuscript, which won me the ECLAS Outstanding Educator Award for Landscape Architecture Schools in autumn 2022.