Reclamations

In the 1970s and 1980s, artists responded to ecological devastation and colonial histories through acts of land reclamation that included both the cultivation and design of landscapes and the creation of ephemeral, symbolic earthworks. At Artpark, a public venue near Niagara Falls, Helen and Newton Harrison, Martin Puryear, and Agnes Denes addressed the desertification of a contaminated spoils pile. In the journal Heresies, Ana Mendieta’s ephemeral siluetas and Harriet Feigenbaum’s practical reclamation strategies were framed within ecofeminist discourse. These artists rejected canonical Land art sited on undeveloped desert landscapes treated as void of human history and biological life. At the same time, many ecologically oriented, socially engaged reclamations failed to acknowledge Indigenous land claims or the impact of extraction on Native communities. This article explores reclamation in relation to colonialism and the occlusions of ecofeminism—and as a practice through which landscapes are reimagined for a public and collective future.