Nicholas A Brown (MFA/PhD) is an artist, writer, teacher, organizer, and walker based in Boston, Massachusetts and La Farge, Wisconsin. His work revolves around questions about landscape, memory, and power. In particular, it examines the production of settler colonial landscapes and the politics of landscape connectivity—the selective affirmation and disavowal of certain relationships between people(s) and places. Brown’s work is informed by questions about how critical spatial practice can be used to mobilize landscapes and activate histories, make familiar spaces productively unfamiliar, unsettle the quietness of possession, and contribute to struggles for decolonization and justice.

Brown teaches in the School of Architecture and Department of History at Northeastern University. He is Artistic Director and Co-Founder of Prefigurative Park Services, a public art and history studio focused on reimagining parks in the Anthropocene. Brown holds a PhD in Landscape Architecture (History & Theory) from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, a MFA degree from UIUC’s School of Art & Design, and a BA from Carleton College. Previously Brown taught in Native American & Indigenous Studies and the Department of Geographical and Sustainability Sciences at the University of Iowa.

Brown is deeply committed to land-based and place-based learning. Weaving history, theory, and practice together in the classroom, on the street, and in the woods, Brown works with students to better understand relationships between social justice and the built environment, and also relationships between social and ecological systems. Using decolonial pedagogies, he encourages students to experiment with techniques for activating histories and landscapes. Recent projects designed in collaboration with students include: Emerald Necklace Transects, a series of digital StoryMaps about the entangled histories of landscape preservation and urban segregation in Boston; Landscape Dialogues, a podcast about contemporary urban design, landscape architecture, and climate breakdown; A Monumental Walk, a critical walking tour of Boston’s real and imagined monuments; A People’s Guide to Firsting and Lasting in Boston, a photographic archive of the ongoing erasure of Indigenous peoples in and around Boston; Indigenous Peoples’ Day NEU, an online resource about the student-led movement to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day at Northeastern and beyond; and Ioway City, a walking tour that explores Indigenous histories and ongoing presence in Iowa City.

KEYWORDS | cultural landscapes | landscape politics | cultural geography | critical geography | political ecology | critical spatial practice | environmental humanities | environmental history | public history | settler colonial studies | settler colonial urbanism | indigenous & settler colonial geographies | decolonial methodologies | native american and indigenous studies | racial capitalism | spatial justice | american studies | critical ethnic studies | memory studies | critical tourism studies | anthropocene | land-based education | pedagogy of place | critical placemaking | environmental justice | design justice