ABSTRACT
In speaking about land art and social identity, we are touching on a place-based identification of community. There are many concepts of land art and of site-specific art and, of course, many concepts about social identity too. The aim of this chapter is not to make a critical survey of these concepts; rather, the intention is to analyze an emerging movement that we have named land, people, and art (LPA), which is different from the classical land art created by professional artists, and to make some attempt at synthesis between the two forms. In using the term land, people, and art, we are stressing the role of community in the process of renewal of the symbolic landscape. Our aim is to stress the potential function of the land, people, and art for renewal of social identity – that is, people’s memories of the landscape and the renewal and transformation of the symbols in the landscape (or in the cityscape). The places in our cases belong to the cities, not only in terms of cadastre, but also in terms of the social memory of a local community.
