Where We Work
Wild Landscapes
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ONE LANDSCAPE partners with the Shillim Institute in Maharashtra, India. Set in the Western Ghats, Shillim is one of 25 biodiversity hotspots across the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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We are testing methods of reading and mapping the landscape on the eastern end of Long Island. The farmland, forest, wetland, beaches, dunes, and bluffs from the village of Amagansett to the coastal Napeague stretch serve as a ONE LANDSCAPE “laboratory.”
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We hold workshops and informal gatherings in Martha’s Vineyard, Woodstock, New York, and the northern Maine coast. Future workshop sites include a biologically unique landscape in the Andes of Colombia and an urban wilderness in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Conservation Culture Community
Recasting Conservation as a Creative Act
To see and understand wild landscapes from fresh perspectives
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Revealing the qualities that define wild landscapes
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Integrating nature and culture
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Fostering beneficial roles for humans within ecosystems
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Seeking to ensure that wild landscapes will be here for future generations
Photo by Margie Ruddick
Mission
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To promote the conservation of wild landscapes by integrating science, art, policy, and community
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To develop sustainable conservation road maps through collaborative, creative, local, and international partnerships
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To shift the culture of conservation from one that objectifies nature to one that understands humans as integral to natural systems
We do this by:
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Emphasizing relationships among cultures, natural systems, and economies
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Collaborating with local communities to leverage their experience and knowledge, focusing on local stewardship of unique wild places
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Working incrementally and organically to develop our methods, projects, and relationships from the ground up
ONE LANDSCAPE, a not-for-profit organization, is a collective of performance and studio artists, scientists, architects, landscape architects, policymakers, and entrepreneurs.
Projects/Events
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Sensorial Mappings: Reimagining landscape through sight, sound, and movement
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Artistic Mappings: A Musical Composition and Soundscape in the Shillim Forest
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Transmedial Dialogues: An Experiment at Olana
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Sustainable Livelihoods: Papermaking with Invasive Species
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A Mapping Exercise in the Wild Lands of Eastern Long Island
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Ephemeral structures
Sensorial Mappings: Reimagining Landscape through Sight, Sound, and Movement
Photo by Cecil Howell
Photo by Cecil Howell
Photo by Cecil Howell
Photo by Cecil Howell
Overlaying and integrating artistic works in different media with the work of biologists, ecologists, and other scientists. We aim to express dynamic, layered natural, cultural, and economic landscape systems.
In June 2016 we began to map a 2500-acre preserve in the Western Ghats of India.
People
ONE LANDSCAPE is led by Margie Ruddick, landscape planner/designer, winner of the 2013 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award in landscape architecture; and Martin Brody, composer, Wellesley College Professor (Emeritus) and 2007-10 Arts Director, American Academy in Rome.
Our first exercise in artistic mapping provided the inspiration for renowned composer Erin Gee’s composition, Shillim: Mouthpiece 31, a commission from the Kronos Quartet.
Transmedial Dialogues: an Experiment at Olana
Photo by Aaron Mendonca
Photo by Aaron Mendonca
At Olana, the historic home and pastoral landscape of the Hudson River painter Frederic Church, we produced an event bringing Joel Gordon’s bioacoustical recordings from Shillim to a larger audience and introducing Erin Gee’s composition.
Sustainable Livelihoods: Papermaking with Invasive Species
Photo by Tim Dumatrait
Photo by Tim Dumatrait
Photo by Tim Dumatrait
Photo by Tim Dumatrait
It is imperative to include sustainable livelihoods in any conservation endeavor. ONE LANDSCAPE aims to
promote economic well-being in local communities.
A Mapping Exercise in the Wild Lands of Eastern Long Island
Photo by Callan Fish
Photo by Santiago Serna
Photo by Santiago Serna
Photo by Callan Fish
We are currently mapping the wild lands of the eastern end of Long Island, from Amagansett to the end of
Napeague, where the glacial terminal moraine meets coastal outwash in a diverse landscape of cranberry
bogs, heaths, pine forests, and dune.
We make
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Site mappings that represent whole systems: ecologies, cultures, and economies
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Art mappings: visual, sonic, and kinetic art that expresses experiences of place
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Artworks that use materials removed from the site in conservation work: disturbed soils, invasive plants, toppled trees
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Visual, graphic, and performance artwork that engages with scientific data and processes
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Publications and virtual/interactive media that document our work
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Ephemeral structures that touch lightly on the land: structures that shape acoustic environments, enclose meeting places for performances and workshops, and shelter participants
Participating and Giving
Contact us at info@onelandscape.org.
Use the form below to sign-up to receive occasional newsletters about ONE LANDSCAPE's work.
We are developing a multi-faceted approach to designing ecologically sound and creative structures that
can provide shelter in the landscape, as well as sites for our projects in the field, working sessions, other
gatherings and performances.
Conservation Roadmaps
The ineffable qualities of wild landscapes are rarely reflected in conservation masterplans. Conventional tools—maps, historical narratives, policy whitepapers, photoshop visualizations—are hard-pressed to convey the transformative power of wild places and the reasons we need to safeguard them.
We founded ONE LANDSCAPE to investigate ways to embed professional analyses, recommendations, and proposals in a more visceral testament to the experience of wild places. By crossing boundaries between art, science, trades, policy, professions, and communities, we hope to create a new form of conservation roadmap: one that moves beyond clinical analysis into the realm of experience.
ONE LANDSCAPE was inspired by Margie Ruddick's work on Shillim Retreat and Institute in India. Working at Shillim for over 20 years, Margie learned that there is no formula for building a community to steward wild places and that green infrastructure and best practices alone do not define a sustainable landscape. By cultivating a slow, incremental, organic, and collaborative process, we aim to create a more self-sustaining environment than that produced by conventional planning processes and recommendations. ONE LANDSCAPE's goal is to shift from a paradigm of providing external “expert” services into a more collaborative approach. Collectively, we build platforms for the exchange of ideas, tools, and methods. Through this process, we aim not only to make wild places more enduring but to transform ourselves as well.
How We Work
Collaboratively
Our work is inherently collaborative. In each of our projects we aim to develop connections with regional and community-based initiatives and individuals while forging partnerships with organizations across the globe. We partner with indigenous communities, organizations, landowners, and guest participants to create a new ethos of land stewardship. Our collective members work across disciplines and media to integrate arts, sciences, policy making, and community-building.
Our 2020 papermaking workshop at the Shinnecock Indian Nation Territory was the first in a series of collaborative exercises aimed at transforming invasive species into artistic materials. The workshop was led by the master papermaker, Susan Gosin—founder of Dieu Donne Paper Mill, Inc. She joined members of the Shinnecock community and the ONE LANDSCAPE collective to look into opportunities to develop methods for papermaking using four invasive species, including Phragmites and Japanese Knotweed. Through our long-term relationship with the Shillim Institute, we have connected with a range of allied organizations, among them, the Bangalore-based Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) and the Architectural Association of London.
Incrementally and Organically
Our work within various wild landscapes takes shape gradually, allowing ample time to develop relationships, both across disciplines and between local practitioners, communities, and collective members from farther afield. Our incremental approach focuses on projects rather than theories, as we work from the ground up, building on skills, programs, and people already engaged in each place.
Sustainable Livelihoods
In the various sites where we work, ONE LANDSCAPE collaborates with local communities to develop sustainable livelihoods programs. We aim to support and create businesses by engaging with each site’s unique ecology.
Donations strengthen all of our programs: conservation roadmaps, artistic and scientific site mappings, the design and creation of ephemeral structures, onsite artistic/artisanal fabrication, and publications. To make a general contribution today, use the secure form below.
Write us at info@onelandscape.org if you are interested in funding specific projects, commissioning artistic works, or supporting internships and sustainable livelihoods programs.
Photo by Santiago Serna
Photo by Margie Ruddick
Photo by Tom Zook
Background Photo by Cecil Howell
Photo by Margie Ruddick
Photo by Cecil Howell
Photo by Callan Fish