Description

The Nevada Museum of Art (NMA) was founded in 1931 by Dr. James Church, an early climate scientist and collector, and since 2003 has occupied a purpose-built home in downtown Reno. The museum’s holdings include American and Western art, landscape photography, and contemporary art. NMA also operates The Center for Art + Environment (CAE), a research arm that strives to be a global leader in the practice, study, and awareness of creative interactions between people and environments. CAE encourages the creation of artworks expressing the interaction between people and environments; convenes artists, scholars, and communities to explore these works; and increases public knowledge of these endeavors. CAE also houses a unique archive documenting over 110 projects by 600 global artists and the breadth of artistic practices that intervene in stressed environments and collaborate with scientists and indigenous peoples. Three to six exhibitions annually are generated from these holdings. 
NMA seeks support for its 2021 Art + Environment Season, a triennial event (since 2008) that gathers leading artists, writers, curators, historians, scientists, researchers, and architects for dialogues on topics related to the intersection of human artists and their natural, built, and virtual environments. Previously held as a three-day conference, the 2021 (pandemic) edition will be framed as a three-month “season” of virtual talks and discussions on Land Art: Past, Present, Futures, a commemoration of 50 years of Land Art. Monumental Earthworks emerged in the American West in the 1960s and 1970s, and the fifteen significant Land Art interventions created in Nevada since 1968 inspired the founding of the CAE and its prior projects with many of the leaders of the movement. Land Art: Past, Present, Futures will interrogate the history of Land Art and explore contemporary and future practices that address environmental sustainability, Indigenous cultural survival, and contested lands.
All events will be captured digitally and made available to the public, scholars, artists, and researchers via the Museum’s YouTube channel and the CAE’s archive. A cohort of local educators will attend the events at no cost, and a ten-person team will work with Museum staff to produce original lesson plans and education content that will be shared through the CAE archive.