Thursday, September 2, 2010

Abstract

Many of us still maintain the idea of nature as a separate entity, untouched and wild, living, evolving, and completely separate from man's built environment. While we, however, live lives that are separate, constructed and molded by technology and culture. This is an ancient theology, one that has fueled the egotistical behavior that has contributed to the environmental degradation that we are seeing today. The concept of nature and civilization living in an interconnected system is a relatively new one and it is this interrelationship that must be brought to light if we are to continue to live within the planet's means at our current growth rate of population, construction and technology.

As one looks at the state of the world's ecosystems, it becomes clear that there is an ever growing disconnect between citizen and nature. The lack of biological understanding and natural intelligence is one of the fundamental reasons that we live in such a psychologically disconnected state within our environment. I believe that this stems from the lack of connectivity between city and the natural systems that have shaped them, and a lack of interaction on an individual level with these systems.

By studying landscape, culture, ecology, and the embedded geological history of the land, I intend to create a place of environmental observation and research that will provide opportunities on varying levels for its inhabitants to reconnect and interweave themselves within the local and regional environment. This experience will ultimately become one of self-discovery and education, and will provide both visitors and scientists alike from the community and abroad with the opportunity to understand ecological systems and their interrelationship with man and civilization.

1 comment:

  1. I love it Ash. You should come work with us. Recently the only places we have been working is where no one has been in years, and people never go. There are no hiking trails, we have to make our own. You know the wildlife is all around you but they never show their face because they hear you coming a mile away. You know they are there, the tracks are everywhere. We did find an alligators remains intact buried upside down under roots and sediment. There is surprisingly a lot more untraveled land in this state than I thought, more than half if uninhabitted. I like where your heads at keep me posted with what your up to.
    Timmy(T Fly)

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