Mapping the World Picture and the Production of Space: Rozalinda Borcil?, The Center for Land Use Interpretation, and Decolonize This Place

Abstract

This thesis inquires into the participatory artistic practices of Rozalinda Borcil?, The Center for Land Use Interpretation, and Decolonize This Place with respect to Martin Heidegger’s concept of the “world picture,” and the production of space in terms of critical geography and the context of struggles for environmental justice. In exploring the practices of this artist, institution, and movement-- each grounded in land-- this thesis addresses Chicago-based Borcil?’s territorial research projects, Western U.S.-based Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI)’s guided bus tours, and New York City-based Decolonize This Place’s Anti-Columbus Day Tours, in terms of the types of world pictures, audience positions, and spaces they produce. In the context of struggles for environmental justice, and various political and aesthetic strategies aimed at addressing climate crisis, how might each of these practices offer tools for better understanding our own relationships to environment and political agency? In this thesis, I argue for these practices-- though not always considered in terms of art and ecology-- as critical in terms of aesthetic and political approaches to struggles for environmental justice.