Hans Baumann

For the Beall Center Art + Ecologies Series, artist Hans Baumann discusses his practice in relation to the contemporary climate crisis. From past land art interventions at hypersaline lakes and abandoned coal mines to current research on archeological methodology and aquaria, Baumann will describe how conceptions of Nature and "the natural" delimit our understanding of the biosphere and constrain our ability to imagine and enact alternatives to fossil capitalism. In doing so, Baumann will foreground the importance of creating and sustaining cross-cultural partnerships, suggest new ways of visualizing landscapes and emphasize the generative potential of direct, lived experience with the land. Moderated by Professor James Nisbet, Chair of Art History and Associate Professor of Visual Studies in the UC Irvine School of Humanities.

Hans Baumann is a Swiss-American artist and land art practitioner based in Los Angeles. Drawing from his background in human geography and landscape architecture, his research-based practice reflects upon ecological collapse, the dynamics of climate change, and the decolonization of American land. His essays and projects have appeared in a variety of publications, including e-flux architecture, The Invention of the American Desert: Art, Land and the Politics of Environment (University of California Press, 2021) and Accumulation: The Art, Architecture, and Media of Climate Change (University of Minnesota Press, 2022), and his work has been supported by institutions such as the Getty Foundation, the Antipode Foundation for Radical Geography, the Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) and the National Endowment for the Arts. Baumann is a Fellow of the Landscape Architecture Foundation and holds degrees from Prifysgol Caerdydd and Harvard University.

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