FOR-SITE FOUNDATION

During a 5-day intensive retreat at FOR-SITE, students explored the land through different perspectives framed by a series of visiting artists, writers, scientists, and people with a distinctively close connection with the landscape of the Sierra foothills.

Students responded by directly engaging with the land using those perspectives. Back at school, they developed design and art works that built on their experiences at FOR-SITE. The semester culminated in on-site installation of the works.

Fortescue is Australian born and educated, and maintained a commercial furniture studio there for ten years, working with leading furniture makers and craftspeople from Australia, the UK, Japan, and the US. He has exhibited internationally and is the recipient of many grants and awards.

Fortescue was one of the first artists to receive the Experimental Design Award given by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In conjunction with this honor, the museum mounted a one-person exhibition of his work in 2001. The artist's work is in numerous public and private collections, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, the National Gallery of Australia, and the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.