About Alice Foxley

Landscape is the sum of all human endeavour to negotiate our terms of belonging to our Earth. It is the physical manifestation of the interplay between natural forces and the human will. A meaningful study of landscape addresses natural forces and the nature of us human beings in balanced equilibrium.

Landscape is the subject of the landscape architect, who is tasked at different scales with transformation of the materials and systems of Earth – historic places of meaning to individuals and communities and sites with ever-evolving ecologies, the complexity of which we still barely understand.

How do we practitioners of landscape architecture deepen our subject understanding at a time when human will is feared as a devastating force for the Earth? What resources can we draw on to challenge and change bad habits and apply with less self interest our creative forces for the good of all living things and our common Earth?

How do we educators bring the breathtaking subject range of landscape within the grasp of students? How do we support a student’s process of self-understanding and confidence in navigating such varied subject matter, and equip them with design methods and skills that will serve them personally and professionally for a life time?

Through my work as a landscape architect as well as personal art practice I am exploring these questions and seek to make relevant insights available for education and discourse. Art practice is a special form of cognition when it seeks to transform intuitive insights into material matter. Increasingly I believe that personal art practice, which quietly informs the work of many Landscape Architects, requires more specific attention. It therefore needs to be made visible as a basis for discussion.