Landscape Architecture's Richard Weller Helps Launch "anthropoScene"

Richard Weller, Professor and Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture, is jurying a global short film competition concerning what organizers call "the profoundly frightening and yet somehow incredibly optimistic" landscapes of the 21st century. Entitled anthropoScene, it's being presented as part of the 2016 International Festival of Landscape Architecture "Not in My Backyard," for which Weller is Creative Director.

The competition for AUD $10,000 in prize money is sponsored by the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) in partnership with the National Museum of Australia and PennDesign's LA+ Interdisciplinary Journal of Landscape Architecture.

Organizers invite submission of 3–4 minute short films on the general subject of the new epoch of the Anthropocene. Entrants can shoot their films on mobile phones or any other device. The competition opens on June 1 and closes August 1. Six finalists will be preselected by the judges for public screening at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra on the evening of October 27, 2016. The ultimate winner will be determined via audience participation at the screening.

At the same time that the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2016, the International Commission on Stratigraphy is expected to formally announce the dawn of the Anthropocene Epoch: a new geological period defined by the fact that the earth’s systems are now fundamentally determined by human activity. The philosophical and practical consequences couldn't be greater: in short, nature is no longer that ever-providing thing ‘out there’, it is, for better or worse, something we are creating. The landscape of the Anthropocene is a cultural landscape and therefore a question of design. 

Joining Weller on the jury are Paul Carter: Author and Artist, RMIT, Melbourne Liam Young: Architect + Futurist, London Silvia Benedito: Landscape Architecture + Media, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, Cambridge Aroussiak Gabrielian: Landscape Architecture + Media, University of Southern California, Los Angeles; Tatum Hands: Editor in Chief, LA+ Interdisciplinary Journal of Landscape Architecture, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; and Kirsten Wehner: visual anthropologist + head curator, National Museum of Australia.

Submission guidelines and specifications are online at AILA.org.au. AILA is the growing national advocacy body representing 2,500 active and engaged landscape architects, promoting the importance of the profession today and for the future. Committed to designing and creating a better Australia, landscape architects shape the world around us.