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The First National Parks in South America
On March 1, 1872 the United States Congress passed an act establishing Yellowstone in Wyoming as the first national park. It was not the first time a government had enclosed an area through legislature, but it was the first time a government had designated an area as a ‘National Park.’ In describing the geographical boundaries of Yellowstone, the 42nd Congress wrote that the land was “… hereby reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people…” Yellowstone would be the first of an eventual…
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América Invertida
This 1934 ink on paper drawing by Uruguayan Joaquín Torres-García challenged the notion that Europe and North America are always centered and rendered as the most important land masses in cartographic drawings. In flipping the South American continent and establishing South as the main cardinal direction to follow, Torres-Garcia is challenging the artistic and pedagogic frames that reaffirm the global North as the source of knowledge. Moving back after 40 years abroad, Torres-Garcia established the School of the South in 1943 to develop and promote Uruguay-centric design in the face of the expanding design influence of Europe and the United States. Although drawn early in the 20th century, this piece…
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Conservation
The act of demarcating and enclosing a specific area of land for the sole purpose of maintaining its ecological functions intact and away from the possibility of development. In setting apart a certain area, no matter the size, the land is set on a different ecological trajectory through the societal action of legislature. “To choose one place and not another alters the evolutionary path of human and nonhuman communities along the way. This means that conservation areas form artifacts of the past, present, and future” (Waklid). Conservation is meant to protect flora and fauna and the natural resources that they hinge on such as soils, hydrology for the enjoyment of…
