ORIENTING IMAGINATION: What Are the Stakes on the Llano Estacado?

On January 31 and February 1, 2025, the School of Art, in collaboration with the Huckabee College of Architecture, presented a symposium titled ORIENTING IMAGINATION: What Are the Stakes on the Llano Estacado.

Orienting Imagination asked contributors to redefine orientation and activate these discussions front and center. If orientation is “a dimensional order” that “amounts to a sacrifice of the individual building’s freestanding self-governance” (David Leatherbarrow), should art, objects, constructions, words, and architecture be oriented within and toward a specific locality? Does equitable design and production require orientation of identities, resources, energy, and labor? If the upright heterosexual body has for too long shaped the contours of ordinary lived experience (Sara Ahmed), how might queer sexual orientations—understood as a matter of residence, redirect and reroute our inhabitation of different worlds? If orientation is to shift and preserve the human condition amid anthropogenic climate change (Dipesh Chakrabarty), how might we reorient experiences of land and environment through art, architecture, and interventions at varying degrees and scales that advocate for more inclusive and ethical inhabitable and performative space? How should we orient ourselves in the Llano Estacado, and—crucially—does this region offer lessons for planetary re-orientation?

Over the two-day symposium eighteen papers were presented by artists, architects, scholars and cultural practitioners from TTU and the region. In addition the symposium hosted a keynote presentation by Dr. Bryan E. Norwood of the University of Texas at Austin. Presentations were grouped under six broad topics or themes which included: Failed Utopias, Queer Bodies, Ground, Horizon, Enclosure, and Action.

An overview of the Symposium can be gathered from the post-symposium brochure - Click Here.

SYMPOSIUM STEERING & REVIEW COMMITTE   

Ke Sun, Assistant Professor, TTU Huckabee College of Architecture
Kevin Chua, Associate Professor, TTU School of Art
Joe Arredondo, Director, Landmark Arts in the TTU School of Art
Chris Taylor, Associate Professor, TTU Huckabee College of Architecture and Director, Land Arts of the American West 
Natalie Hegert, Instructor, TTU School of Art and Arts Editor, Southwest Contemporary