50 Hikes @ 50 Places of Culture Intro
During graduate school, I serendipitously found myself in a class on Art & Geography. The content of the class was the intersection of these, of course, but I found a whole discipline on the culture of place. Artistically, I’m inspired by place, as I know others are, but exactly what is culture? The term is used interchangeably with “the arts”, but culture is really much more.
Culture is our values, beliefs, perspectives, skin color, understanding and knowledge – our very identity – and multigenerational memory. It’s also our social and artistic expression; our customs, religion, social norms, language and way of thinking[1] to which one could attach a time period. Ideas are generated and innovations are produced in a space at a place at a particular, or over the course of, time.
Culture in western tradition, seems to be humanly derived, imposed or adopted. In other words, people apply culture (their beliefs, values, ideas and expression) to place. The evidence for this is plentiful. In America, the land was regarded as an empty canvas upon which to apply new ideals and existing Eurocentric culture. But what if, in actuality, culture is derived fundamentally from place, the landscape itself; and that our culture evolves from our human interaction and experience with the environmental landscape?
I’ve decided to dedicate 50 blogs, in the following year, to examining 50 places in America which illustrate how the landscape inspires and/or impacts the development of its culture. All represent treks personally taken by me and, keeping in mind limited hiking experience for some, are attainable for anyone reasonably prepared. I made the following considerations in the selection process:
- The meaning of the landscape and its cultural impact
- Accessible (in a half day) to urban centers
- The reality of limited vacation time
- No major National Parks – Ken Burns has got this covered
- Presence of heritage, music and/or other artistic expression
Further, I explore “cultural” activities in these places. Why do music festivals so often happen in the mountains? What in the landscape draws people and particular activities to it? How do some places become spiritual centers? How did the beliefs, identity and culture of the earliest inhabitants derive from the landscape itself? If a definition of art is the expression and manifestation of an artists interaction and experience in the world, then one could argue that all art-making emanates from the landscape.
Land transcends time and people. Our lives are but a blip on its existence. Through exploring the land on foot, one can in essence, transcend time.
[1] For more on defining culture, see Jon Hawkes, The Fourth Pillar of Sustainability, Melbourne: Common Ground Publishing, 2001, and Richard Nesbit, The Geography of Thought __________
[2] Several authors could be accessed for much more detail including Tim Cresswell, Don Mitchell Yi-Fu Tuan and David Atkinson