Emily Eliza Scott
former postdoc
Curriculum vitae
EDUCATION
2010 University of California, Los Angeles
Doctor of Philosophy, Art History
Major Field: Contemporary (Post-1945) Art; Minor Fields: Cultural Geography, American Art
Dissertation: “Wasteland: American Landscapes in/and 1960s Art”
Masters Thesis: “Birth of the Atomic Desert”
Committee: George Baker, Denis E. Cosgrove, Miwon Kwon (Advisor), Felicity D. Scott, Dell Upton
1993 Bryn Mawr College
Bachelor of Arts, Art History, Cum Laude
Senior Thesis: “Jimmie Durham and James Luna: Artistic Interventions in Museum Discourse and ‘Authentic’ Culture”
AWARDS/GRANTS/FELLOWSHIPS (select)
• 2011 Arts Writers Grant, Creative Capital and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts (articles category)
• 2011 Art Journal Award, College Art Association (for most distinguished contribution to the journal each year; awarded to “Contemporary Art and Land Use” forum, of which mine was one of three essays)
• 2008-9 Luce/ACLS Dissertation Fellowship in American Art, Luce Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies
• 2007-8 Predoctoral Residential Fellowship, Smithsonian American Art Museum
• 2007-8 Switzer Environmental Fellowship, Robert & Patricia Switzer Foundation
• 2007 Carter Manny Award, Graham Foundation (annual award for single architecture-related dissertation)
• 2007 Fletcher Jones Foundation Fellowship, Huntington Library (one-month dissertation research residency)
• 2007 Selectee, Americans for the Arts’ Public Art Network Year in Review (for Los Angeles Urban Rangers’ Interstate Road Trip Specialist project)
EXPERIENCE
• 2013- Postdoc, Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta), ETH Zurich, Switzerland (Chair: Philip Urpsrung)
• 2012 Visiting Professor, Faculty of Arts, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands: In conjunction with the Métamatic Research Initiative
• 2011-12 Advisor, Postgraduate Program in Curating, Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, Switzerland: Year-long supervisor to master-level students (Director: Dorothee Richter)
• 2011-12 Lecturer, Institute for Critical Theory, Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, Switzerland
• 2005 Co-Organizer, “Field Works: Art/Geography” conference, UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA: Two-day conference on emerging intersections between art and geography
• 2004 Founding Member, Los Angeles Urban Rangers: Interdisciplinary art collective that develops participatory, site-specific programming about the built environment in order to highlight complex entanglements between the “natural” and “cultural”
• 2004 Curatorial Research Assistant, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California: For Robert Smithson retrospective (Curator: Eugenie Tsai)
• 2002-7 Research Assistant, Paul J. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California
• 1994-2005 Park Ranger, United States National Park Service: Developed interpretive programs in/on Glacier Bay, Canyonlands, Arches, and Black Canyon National Parks
TEACHING (select)
• 2016 “Sensing the Insensible: Aesthetics in the Anthropocene,” two-day workshop (co-taught with Andrew Yang and Jeremy Bolen), Anthropocene Campus II, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin, Germany
• 2015 “Situating Climate Change,” BA/MA-level seminar, Inst. for the History and Theory of Architecture, ETH Zurich
• 2014 “Architecture in the Expanded Field,” BA/MA-level seminar (co-taught with Nina Zschocke), Inst. for the History and Theory of Architecture, ETH Zurich
• 2013 “Nature in the Post-Natural Age,” BA/MA-level seminar (co-taught with Nina Zschocke), Inst. for the History and Theory of Architecture, ETH Zurich
• 2012 “Art-Media-Site in the 1960s” master-level seminar, Faculty of Arts, VU University Amsterdam
• 2011 “The Spatial Turn in Contemporary Art” master-level seminar, Institute for Critical Theory, Zurich University of the Arts
• 2006-7 “Ecoventions: Contemporary Art & the Environment” undergraduate seminar, UCLA Freshman Cluster Program
• 2005-7 Teaching Fellow, “The Global Environment: a Multi-Disciplinary Perspective,” UCLA Freshman Cluster Program: Ran discussion sections for year-long lecture course co-taught by faculty from the Ecology, Atmospheric Sciences, Urban Planning, Civil and Environmental Engineering departments
INTERDISCIPLINARY ART/RESEARCH PLATFORMS
World of Matter (2011-present)
International art and media project investigating primary materials (fossil, mineral, agrarian, maritime) and the complex ecologies of which they are a part. Initiated by video essayist Ursula Biemann, this project has culminated in a multimedia web-based platform and series of exhibitions, symposia, and publications. worldofmatter.net
>>> Books
World of Matter. Edited by Inke Arns. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2015.
Provisões: Uma Conferência Visual [World of Matter]. Edited by Mabe Bethônico. Belo Horizonte, Brazil: Instituto Cidades Criativas, 2013.
>>> Exhibitions
Tensta Konsthalle, Stockholm, Sweden; Curator: Maria Lind (2017 / forthcoming)
Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada (Feb.-April 2015); Curator: Michèle Thériault
James Gallery, City Univ. of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center (Sept.-Nov. 2014); Curator: Katherine Carl
Hartware MedienKunstverein, Dortmund, Germany (March-June 2014); Curator: Inke Arns
Los Angeles Urban Rangers (2004-present)
Interdisciplinary collective that develops guided hikes, campfire talks, field kits, and other interpretive tools to spark creative explorations of everyday habitats, in Los Angeles, California, and beyond. Other Core Members: Sara Daleiden, Jenny Price, and Therese Kelly. laurbanrangers.org
>>> Projects (select)
• "Critical Campout" (2011): Guided hike to the highly-charged threshold between Gallery Row and Skid Row, followed by a campfire discussion and overnight campout at MOCA’s Grand Avenue plaza focused on the evolving ecology of art and gentrification in downtown Los Angeles; a collaboration between the Los Angeles Urban Rangers and Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD), this was one of three large-scale events orchestrated for MOCA’s “Engagement Party” series
• "Public Access 101: Malibu Public Beaches" (2007-10): Public “safaris” exploring the largely-invisible geography of public-private space along Malibu’s contentious coastline as well as a map/guide to all public access ways, eventually translated into Spanish and distributed on local public transportation lines [VIDEO]: laurbanrangers.org
• "SITE2F7 Ontdekkingstocht/Explorer’s Hike" (2008): Trail system through the only “wild” plot in the hyper-planned city of Almere, the Netherlands (master plan by Rem Koolhaas), on the grounds of the Museum De Paviljoens; via posted signs, our trail posed questions about the civic value and potential of this amorphous space relative to its urban and polder (human-made landscape) contexts
• "Interstate Road Trip Specialist Field Kit and Field Guide to the American Road Trip" (2006): Customizable field kit and 38-page field guide designed to facilitate sharpened observational skills for reading 21st century roadside geographies, particularly in light of the ever-increasing standardization of the American landscape (the U.S. Interstate Highway System is emblematic, with its straightened corridors, limited access points, consistent speeds, and repetitive models of urban development); in addition to producing these participatory tools, we field tested them during a two-week West-to-East Coast “reverse pioneering” road trip, which culminated in a public lecture/performance at Socrates Sculpture Park in New York City
• "Landscaping Ahead: Los Angeles Freeway Gardens" (2004): Campfire program about the 8,000 acres lining freeways in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, which explored these peripheral, high-speed landscapes in terms of who manages and designs them, their flora/fauna, and how and why (although first pitched as ideal picnic stops for leisurely Sunday afternoon excursions) they are now almost entirely off-limits to embodied exploration and occupation
>>> Group Exhibitions & Residencies
• 2016 (forthcoming): “Design for the Other 90%: USA,” Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York City, NY; Curator: Cynthia Smith
• 2011: “Engagement Party,” Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California: Three-month residency during which we orchestrated three large-scale public event at MOCA on downtown LA: Bunker Hill Expedition (July 7), LA River Ramble (August 4), and Critical Campout (September 1)
• 2010: “California Biennial,” Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California (Curator: Sarah Bancroft): One of three selected artist residents in the biennial, we developed and led participants on the Vista Trail Hike, the first component of our Public Access 101: Downtown LA series; our Portable Ranger Station kiosk/sculpture was included in the exhibition
• 2009: “Open City: Designing Coexistence,” 4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (Curator: Kees Christiaanse)
• 2008 : “Actions: What You Can Do With the City,” Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, Quebec (Curators: Mirko Zardini and Giovanna Borasi) + “Experimental Geography: Radical Approaches to Landscape, Cartography, and Urbanism,” Independent Curators International (Curator: Nato Thompson): Three of our maps were included in artist Daniel Tucker’s We Are Here map archive
• 2007: “Just Space(s),” Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Los Angeles, California (Curators: Ava Bromberg and Nick Brown)
• 2006: “First Fair Exchange,” Millard Sheets Gallery, Pomona, California (Curator: Irene Tsatsos) + “Interstate: the American Road Trip,” High Desert Test Sites, Joshua Tree, California, and Socrates Sculpture Park, New York, New York (Curators: Andrea Zittel, Alison Baker, Robyn Donohue and Shaun Caley Regen)
• 2004: “The GardenLAb Experiment,” Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California (Curators: Fritz Haeg and François Perrin)
>>> Press
• Stephanie LeManager, “The Los Angeles Urban Rangers, Trailblazing the Commons,” in American Studies, Ecocriticism, and Citizenship: Thinking and Acting in the Local and Global Commons, eds. Joni Adamson and Kimberly Ruffin (Routledge, 2012), 220-235.
• Emily Bills, "Los Angeles Urban Rangers," Engagement Party Social Practice at MOCA 2008-2012 (Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2012), 171-186.
• Archive of Socially Engaged Practices from 1991-2011, developed in conjunction with Living as Form exhibition at Creative Time, New York, New York (Curator: Nato Thompson): creativetime.org
• John Ydstie, “Urban Rangers Quest for the Natural L.A,” Weekend Edition Sunday, National Public Radio (August 7, 2011) [AUDIO]: npr.org
• KCET Departures, “L.A. River Ramble: Entering the Backcountry of Los Angeles” (January 26, 2012): kcet.org
• “Los Angeles Urban Rangers,” in 2010 California Biennial (Orange County Museum of Art and Prestel, 2011), 126-29.
• “Sustaining LA,” by Bill Kelley Jr. (January 2008): kcet.org
• Mindy Farabee, “(Re)Interpreting the City,” Legacy vol. 18, no. 6 (Nov-Dec 2007): 14-20+.
2010 University of California, Los Angeles
Doctor of Philosophy, Art History
Major Field: Contemporary (Post-1945) Art; Minor Fields: Cultural Geography, American Art
Dissertation: “Wasteland: American Landscapes in/and 1960s Art”
Masters Thesis: “Birth of the Atomic Desert”
Committee: George Baker, Denis E. Cosgrove, Miwon Kwon (Advisor), Felicity D. Scott, Dell Upton
1993 Bryn Mawr College
Bachelor of Arts, Art History, Cum Laude
Senior Thesis: “Jimmie Durham and James Luna: Artistic Interventions in Museum Discourse and ‘Authentic’ Culture”
AWARDS/GRANTS/FELLOWSHIPS (select)
• 2011 Arts Writers Grant, Creative Capital and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts (articles category)
• 2011 Art Journal Award, College Art Association (for most distinguished contribution to the journal each year; awarded to “Contemporary Art and Land Use” forum, of which mine was one of three essays)
• 2008-9 Luce/ACLS Dissertation Fellowship in American Art, Luce Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies
• 2007-8 Predoctoral Residential Fellowship, Smithsonian American Art Museum
• 2007-8 Switzer Environmental Fellowship, Robert & Patricia Switzer Foundation
• 2007 Carter Manny Award, Graham Foundation (annual award for single architecture-related dissertation)
• 2007 Fletcher Jones Foundation Fellowship, Huntington Library (one-month dissertation research residency)
• 2007 Selectee, Americans for the Arts’ Public Art Network Year in Review (for Los Angeles Urban Rangers’ Interstate Road Trip Specialist project)
EXPERIENCE
• 2013- Postdoc, Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta), ETH Zurich, Switzerland (Chair: Philip Urpsrung)
• 2012 Visiting Professor, Faculty of Arts, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands: In conjunction with the Métamatic Research Initiative
• 2011-12 Advisor, Postgraduate Program in Curating, Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, Switzerland: Year-long supervisor to master-level students (Director: Dorothee Richter)
• 2011-12 Lecturer, Institute for Critical Theory, Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, Switzerland
• 2005 Co-Organizer, “Field Works: Art/Geography” conference, UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA: Two-day conference on emerging intersections between art and geography
• 2004 Founding Member, Los Angeles Urban Rangers: Interdisciplinary art collective that develops participatory, site-specific programming about the built environment in order to highlight complex entanglements between the “natural” and “cultural”
• 2004 Curatorial Research Assistant, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California: For Robert Smithson retrospective (Curator: Eugenie Tsai)
• 2002-7 Research Assistant, Paul J. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California
• 1994-2005 Park Ranger, United States National Park Service: Developed interpretive programs in/on Glacier Bay, Canyonlands, Arches, and Black Canyon National Parks
TEACHING (select)
• 2016 “Sensing the Insensible: Aesthetics in the Anthropocene,” two-day workshop (co-taught with Andrew Yang and Jeremy Bolen), Anthropocene Campus II, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin, Germany
• 2015 “Situating Climate Change,” BA/MA-level seminar, Inst. for the History and Theory of Architecture, ETH Zurich
• 2014 “Architecture in the Expanded Field,” BA/MA-level seminar (co-taught with Nina Zschocke), Inst. for the History and Theory of Architecture, ETH Zurich
• 2013 “Nature in the Post-Natural Age,” BA/MA-level seminar (co-taught with Nina Zschocke), Inst. for the History and Theory of Architecture, ETH Zurich
• 2012 “Art-Media-Site in the 1960s” master-level seminar, Faculty of Arts, VU University Amsterdam
• 2011 “The Spatial Turn in Contemporary Art” master-level seminar, Institute for Critical Theory, Zurich University of the Arts
• 2006-7 “Ecoventions: Contemporary Art & the Environment” undergraduate seminar, UCLA Freshman Cluster Program
• 2005-7 Teaching Fellow, “The Global Environment: a Multi-Disciplinary Perspective,” UCLA Freshman Cluster Program: Ran discussion sections for year-long lecture course co-taught by faculty from the Ecology, Atmospheric Sciences, Urban Planning, Civil and Environmental Engineering departments
INTERDISCIPLINARY ART/RESEARCH PLATFORMS
World of Matter (2011-present)
International art and media project investigating primary materials (fossil, mineral, agrarian, maritime) and the complex ecologies of which they are a part. Initiated by video essayist Ursula Biemann, this project has culminated in a multimedia web-based platform and series of exhibitions, symposia, and publications. worldofmatter.net
>>> Books
World of Matter. Edited by Inke Arns. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2015.
Provisões: Uma Conferência Visual [World of Matter]. Edited by Mabe Bethônico. Belo Horizonte, Brazil: Instituto Cidades Criativas, 2013.
>>> Exhibitions
Tensta Konsthalle, Stockholm, Sweden; Curator: Maria Lind (2017 / forthcoming)
Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada (Feb.-April 2015); Curator: Michèle Thériault
James Gallery, City Univ. of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center (Sept.-Nov. 2014); Curator: Katherine Carl
Hartware MedienKunstverein, Dortmund, Germany (March-June 2014); Curator: Inke Arns
Los Angeles Urban Rangers (2004-present)
Interdisciplinary collective that develops guided hikes, campfire talks, field kits, and other interpretive tools to spark creative explorations of everyday habitats, in Los Angeles, California, and beyond. Other Core Members: Sara Daleiden, Jenny Price, and Therese Kelly. laurbanrangers.org
>>> Projects (select)
• "Critical Campout" (2011): Guided hike to the highly-charged threshold between Gallery Row and Skid Row, followed by a campfire discussion and overnight campout at MOCA’s Grand Avenue plaza focused on the evolving ecology of art and gentrification in downtown Los Angeles; a collaboration between the Los Angeles Urban Rangers and Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD), this was one of three large-scale events orchestrated for MOCA’s “Engagement Party” series
• "Public Access 101: Malibu Public Beaches" (2007-10): Public “safaris” exploring the largely-invisible geography of public-private space along Malibu’s contentious coastline as well as a map/guide to all public access ways, eventually translated into Spanish and distributed on local public transportation lines [VIDEO]: laurbanrangers.org
• "SITE2F7 Ontdekkingstocht/Explorer’s Hike" (2008): Trail system through the only “wild” plot in the hyper-planned city of Almere, the Netherlands (master plan by Rem Koolhaas), on the grounds of the Museum De Paviljoens; via posted signs, our trail posed questions about the civic value and potential of this amorphous space relative to its urban and polder (human-made landscape) contexts
• "Interstate Road Trip Specialist Field Kit and Field Guide to the American Road Trip" (2006): Customizable field kit and 38-page field guide designed to facilitate sharpened observational skills for reading 21st century roadside geographies, particularly in light of the ever-increasing standardization of the American landscape (the U.S. Interstate Highway System is emblematic, with its straightened corridors, limited access points, consistent speeds, and repetitive models of urban development); in addition to producing these participatory tools, we field tested them during a two-week West-to-East Coast “reverse pioneering” road trip, which culminated in a public lecture/performance at Socrates Sculpture Park in New York City
• "Landscaping Ahead: Los Angeles Freeway Gardens" (2004): Campfire program about the 8,000 acres lining freeways in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, which explored these peripheral, high-speed landscapes in terms of who manages and designs them, their flora/fauna, and how and why (although first pitched as ideal picnic stops for leisurely Sunday afternoon excursions) they are now almost entirely off-limits to embodied exploration and occupation
>>> Group Exhibitions & Residencies
• 2016 (forthcoming): “Design for the Other 90%: USA,” Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York City, NY; Curator: Cynthia Smith
• 2011: “Engagement Party,” Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California: Three-month residency during which we orchestrated three large-scale public event at MOCA on downtown LA: Bunker Hill Expedition (July 7), LA River Ramble (August 4), and Critical Campout (September 1)
• 2010: “California Biennial,” Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California (Curator: Sarah Bancroft): One of three selected artist residents in the biennial, we developed and led participants on the Vista Trail Hike, the first component of our Public Access 101: Downtown LA series; our Portable Ranger Station kiosk/sculpture was included in the exhibition
• 2009: “Open City: Designing Coexistence,” 4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (Curator: Kees Christiaanse)
• 2008 : “Actions: What You Can Do With the City,” Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, Quebec (Curators: Mirko Zardini and Giovanna Borasi) + “Experimental Geography: Radical Approaches to Landscape, Cartography, and Urbanism,” Independent Curators International (Curator: Nato Thompson): Three of our maps were included in artist Daniel Tucker’s We Are Here map archive
• 2007: “Just Space(s),” Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Los Angeles, California (Curators: Ava Bromberg and Nick Brown)
• 2006: “First Fair Exchange,” Millard Sheets Gallery, Pomona, California (Curator: Irene Tsatsos) + “Interstate: the American Road Trip,” High Desert Test Sites, Joshua Tree, California, and Socrates Sculpture Park, New York, New York (Curators: Andrea Zittel, Alison Baker, Robyn Donohue and Shaun Caley Regen)
• 2004: “The GardenLAb Experiment,” Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California (Curators: Fritz Haeg and François Perrin)
>>> Press
• Stephanie LeManager, “The Los Angeles Urban Rangers, Trailblazing the Commons,” in American Studies, Ecocriticism, and Citizenship: Thinking and Acting in the Local and Global Commons, eds. Joni Adamson and Kimberly Ruffin (Routledge, 2012), 220-235.
• Emily Bills, "Los Angeles Urban Rangers," Engagement Party Social Practice at MOCA 2008-2012 (Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2012), 171-186.
• Archive of Socially Engaged Practices from 1991-2011, developed in conjunction with Living as Form exhibition at Creative Time, New York, New York (Curator: Nato Thompson): creativetime.org
• John Ydstie, “Urban Rangers Quest for the Natural L.A,” Weekend Edition Sunday, National Public Radio (August 7, 2011) [AUDIO]: npr.org
• KCET Departures, “L.A. River Ramble: Entering the Backcountry of Los Angeles” (January 26, 2012): kcet.org
• “Los Angeles Urban Rangers,” in 2010 California Biennial (Orange County Museum of Art and Prestel, 2011), 126-29.
• “Sustaining LA,” by Bill Kelley Jr. (January 2008): kcet.org
• Mindy Farabee, “(Re)Interpreting the City,” Legacy vol. 18, no. 6 (Nov-Dec 2007): 14-20+.
