Beyond One Bottle

Elizabeth Graff’s students don’t see art and sustainability as separate subjects. In their mind, landscape architecture isn’t mutually exclusive. And their recent land art installation outside the University of Idaho Commons shows their commitment to joining with other disciplines as a testament to the bond between the two areas.

The Beyond One Bottle display was “an abstraction of the connection between the use of natural resources, sustainability, and the culture in which we live."

The primarily sophomore class used common donated materials to create a display focusing attention on the effect everyday habits have on the environment. Staking whiskers used to denote proposed elevation in site engineering processes were arranged to represent a sea of wildflowers, parodying Lewis and Clark’s observations that many large expanses of native vegetation appeared to be bodies of water. 

Impact

The Beyond One Bottle display was “an abstraction of the connection between the use of natural resources, sustainability, and the culture in which we live. Through the installation, it was our intention to raise awareness of the conservation and preservation of natural resources in a way that was both thought provoking and uplifting,” said Graff, Assistant Professor in the University’s Landscape Architecture program.

“Our goal is to encourage viewers to look beyond one water bottle, beyond our immediate environment on campus, and to realize how our use of water influences all living communities, natural systems and global health,” said one student.

Principal Contributors

Elizabeth Graff
Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture
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Additional Contributors

All-in-all, 18 landscape architecture students participated in the project’s installation. The group worked with two sculpture students, one assistant professor, two departments, Facilities Services and the University’s Sustainability Center to create an interdisciplinary and artistic reminder of how everyday habits affect the Earth and its resources.