LEARNING FROM THE CLOUD RAINFOREST
Field Art School
Combining art, the cloud forest and sustainability in Costa Rica
LFTCR Field Art School is an interdisciplinary, mixed-level (BFA and MFA), credited course offered by Concordia University Faculty of Fine Arts at the edge of a cloud rain forest. Located in one of the most unique ecosystems in the world, the Monteverde Cloud Forest in Costa Rica—home to 6% of the world’s biodiversity—the focus of this field school is on learning from the rainforest. Through guided field work, readings, workshops, research assignments, and collaborative projects, students learn about sustainability, aesthetics and creativity in ecosystems.
Students participate in community public art projects as well as hands-on workshops offered by renowned natural scientists on topics such as colour in tropical plants, biomimicry, the role of sound at night in the forest, natural dyes, permaculture and bioconstruction.
Discover how art, the cloud forest, and community come together in Monteverde, Costa Rica!
With over 4,000 students, faculty and staff, Concordia’s Faculty of Fine Arts stands as one of North America's largest and most distinguished art and design schools. The Faculty ranks at the top of global art and design schools. With nine departments, the Faculty is located in the heart of Montreal — a city surrounded by museums, galleries, cinemas, theatres and concert halls.
HOST INSTITUTION:
Founded in 1986 and located at the edge of the Monteverde Cloud Rainforest, the Monteverde Institute is a non-for-profit educational organization dedicated to promoting social, ecological and economic sustainability by integrating community initiatives with education, research and conservation.
Its unique campus provides space for academic and community partners to learn, teach, gather, reflect, and create. The campus is comprised of classrooms of different sizes, an auditorium with capacity for 100 people, and The John and Doris Campbell Library. The Campbell Library supports local and international scholarship and serves as a physical and digital repository of research on the cloud forest.
Remodeled and re-equipped in 2015, the Institute’s laboratory has incubators, freezers, drying racks, micro/stereoscopes, scales, and other standard lab equipment. The lab also boasts a state-of-the-art weather station where data is downloaded daily and provided to researchers upon request.
Sustainable Campus
The campus infrastructure incorporates the best building practices for sustainability in a tropical climate, including treatment of grey water and rainwater, use of biodegradable products in the kitchens and restrooms, use of high efficacy and available lighting, composting and recycling. Behind the buildings, the rest of the 32-acre campus consists of hundreds of acres of lush, protected cloud forest.
Classroom at the Monteverde Institute