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Donald Fortescue and CCA students at the FOR-SITE residency
Artist Programs

Education Programs

Since 2003, FOR-SITE’s education program has enriched the experience of graduate-level art students with learning opportunities that extend beyond the traditional academic curriculum. FOR-SITE offers educators affiliated with the foundation’s institutional partners the space and resources to create a course or seminar focused on their interests. The foundation provides access to the Nevada City residency site and funding that covers essential project expenses. Students are in residence for no less than two three-day sessions during an academic term. Upon completion of the project, students work with instructors to produce course documentation in the form of a publication or other record of the class.

Spring 2016, California College of the ArtsSusanne CockrellIndwelling

This studio research lab invited students to move their toolkits, studio, and lens of production to the Sierra Nevada and work through their own experiences of being on the land. Through guided walks, and meetings with local artists, community groups, herbalists and trackers students focused on understanding the complex relationships between their art practices and a sense of indwelling.

Fall 2015, California College of the ArtsBrian ConleyNon-Site For-Site

Taking Robert Smithson’s concept of site/non-site as a framework within which to engage the land in and around Nevada City, this class focussed on three major subject areas that have affected—and will continue to affect—the region in the past, present, and future.

Spring 2015, California College of the ArtsMia FeuerOverstanding/Undermining

This class examined the complex and exploitive relationship between the human species and the natural world with a focus on the Nevada County territory and history. Engaging in discussion on the ecology of the man-made world, and the scars left on and under the landscape, students questioned, challenged, and reimagined humanity’s complicated but magical relationship to the natural world.

Fall 2014, California College of the ArtsDeborah Valoma and Angela HennessyLoss for Words

This seminar considered the Sierra Nevada landscape as a witness to personal and cultural narratives of loss. Locating historical and traditional practices as gestures of resistance and continuity, students contemplated how things speak without speaking, acquire meaning as they dissipate, and assert their presence in absence.

Spring 2014, California College of the ArtsRanu Mukherjee and David BurnsProcession for the Extracted

This project explored the history of gold mining and narratives of westward expansion in the region of Nevada City. Taking on dual roles as both guests and hosts, students in CCA’s Social Practice Workshop responded to these legacies through a processional series of works enacted on site.

Fall 2013, California College of the ArtsKota EzawaAfter “After Nature”

After Nature, a 2008 New Museum exhibition titled after a book by W. G. Sebald, sought to illuminate a future landscape of wilderness and ruins and to tell a story of “humanity coming apart under the pressure of obscure forces and not-so-distant environmental disasters.” Taking the exhibition as a starting point, students embarked on an expedition toward new ground in nature art.

Fall 2012, California College of the ArtsRichard T. WalkerRe-Presenting Experience: An Assessment of the Figure Within Landscape

A lone figure, dwarfed by the immensity of nature, confronted and challenged by the ferocious splendor and magnificence of the surroundings in which s/he is engulfed, is a common theme in many 19th-century Romantic landscape paintings. This provides a point of departure for a class examining the relationship between landscape, figure, and the representation of experience.

Spring 2012, California College of the ArtsDonald FortescueStudio Research Laboratory: NorCal Musings

This studio explored the land as a site for work. The class focused on the human and natural histories of two disparate sites — the FOR-SITE Foundation and the Headlands Center for the Arts — and created original works that engage the complex cultural mesh of each site.

Fall 2011, California College of the ArtsAlison Sant and Amy FranceschiniNature in the City

This course explored the complex relationships between rural and urban, natural and man-made. Using the Presidio of San Francisco as a case study, students researched the design and history of the park and how it reflects cultural concepts of nature.

Spring 2011, California College of the ArtsRené de GuzmanMining Nevada City: Oakland Museum of California Case Study

This project-based study examined how the art, history, and natural environment of a region are mediated and represented by an urban museum. Graduate Curatorial Practice (CURP) students immersed themselves in the history, landscape, art, and culture of Nevada City and in the collections, history, and programs of the Oakland Museum of California.

Fall 2009, California College of the ArtsTed PurvesThe Map and the View: Working on and from the Land

This course was an exploration of how one responds to a particular place; how one speaks of that response and the place itself when no longer there; and the methods used to describe a place to those who will never see it.

Spring 2009, California College of the ArtsNathan LynchMaster of Fine Arts Field Study

This interdisciplinary, field-based seminar focused on earthworks, land use, and ecological interventions. Students took several trips to the residency site to camp, study, experiment, and explore.

Spring 2008, California College of the ArtsNathan LynchCeramics Workshop

This interdisciplinary course focused on earthworks, land use, and ecological interventions. Guest artist Ursula von Rydingsvard worked with the students.

Fall 2007, California College of the ArtsDonald FortescueFurniture Studio

This graduate-level course focused on the Northern California landscape as a site and source for art and design work.

Fall 2007–Spring 2008, California College of the ArtsOblio JenkinsSite-Specific Design/Build

This two-semester project connected students to nature and place in the context of a full exploration of the architectural design process.

Spring 2007, University of California, BerkeleyWalter HoodTopics in Landscape Architecture and Environmental Design

Students in this course designed the perfect artist’s studio. By interviewing two prominent Bay Area artists, John Zurier and Mildred Howard, students gained firsthand knowledge of what a working artist needs in order to create, then translated these guidelines into working design models.

Spring 2007, San Francisco State UniversitySandra KelchGraduate Seminar in Information Design

This five-week “real-world” project afforded students the opportunity to research and design wayfinding systems (maps and signage) for the FOR-SITE Foundation.

Fall 2004, San Francisco Art InstituteAmy FranceschiniTrails Forever

The Trails Forever project took place within a Media Theory and Practice course. The project examined the use of wireless technologies as non-intrusive interpretation systems.

Fall 2003, University of California, BerkeleyWalter HoodShaping the Public Realm: Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning

This project asked “What happens if we take the approach of Robert Smithson’s Nonsite?” Students critiqued and worked within the context of the Nonsite.

Fall 2003, California College of the ArtsLisa Findley and Bruce TombGrounding Architecture

This studio introduced students to tectonics in architecture through an investigation of site and ground. The focus was on the understanding of particularities that site lends to architecture, and learning to think about buildings in the landscape.

Spring 2003, California College of the ArtsDonald FortescueWood/Furniture Course

Fortescue, along with three other faculty and fifteen students from the Wood/Furniture Program at the California College of the Arts, trekked to FOR-SITE’s residency site for three days of exploration, learning, and creativity.

Artist Programs

  • Overview
  • Artist Residencies
  • Education Programs
    • Indwelling
    • Non-Site For-Site
    • Overstanding/Undermining
    • Loss for Words
    • After “After Nature”
    • Re-Presenting Experience: An Assessment of the Figure Within Landscape
  • Wauson Fellowships

Field Notes

  • Fall 2015 Education Program Perspective — Instructor Brian Conley

  • Fall 2015 Education Program Perspective — Frances Richard, Guest Instructor

  • Spring 2015 Education Program Perspective — Peter von Tiesenhausen, Guest Artist

Artist Editions

  • Syjuco DSC_2956a copy
  • alfarrowmultiple
  • michelepredmultipleopen
  • trevorpaglen-challenge-coin_rdh_001

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