We undertook two site visits in this class, one to a derelict site in Woodstock – an old boat yard – the other to the landscaped Greenpoint Urban Park. Students were asked to list all elements in both spaces, considering what seemed ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’. Our intention was to complicate our ideas of what is ‘natural’ or ‘nature’. Students also photographed the sites.

In our discussion after the site visits, students spoke about the differences between the two spaces, and how each could be considered ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ in their own ways. The Greenpoint park presented an obvious, perhaps ‘idyllic’ natural space, with a biodiversity garden, many trees and plants, birds and so on – but in its order and formality it was ‘unnatural’ in comparison to the ‘natural’ chaos of the Woodstock site. The derelict Woodstock site had more synthetic or manufactured, ‘unnatural’ elements in it, being filled with old boat hulls, bits of rope, paper, fragments of wood, broken roof tiles, and so on. It didn’t present an idyllic ‘nature’; but in its disordered mix of unnatural with ‘natural’ elements – grass and trees growing up through the detritus, natural forms taking over or reclaiming the synthetic space: in this way it was a natural space.

Our intention was not to elevate one site over the other, but to understand how the meaning of what is ‘natural’ shifts according to its definition. We also spoke about the possible attraction to artists of derelict spaces, with the exciting sense of trespass in investigating them – which are perhaps different criteria to other citizens’ use of space. Of interest to us too was questions of audience and access; who could be targeted in each space? And we spoke about how an interventionist approach to each space might work: what are the affordances of each space, and how might an artist mimic, subvert or amplify elements of each space.