Rebecca Krinke is professor of landscape architecture at the University of Minnesota. She has a multidisciplinary practice that works across sculpture, installation, public art, site works, and social practice. In broad terms, her creative practice and research deals with issues related to place and emotion. Oftentimes, trauma, and responses to trauma is a focus—moving from body to space, from object to landscape—exploring trauma and healing as it moves from individuals to societies to ecosystems and back again. For her Dumbarton Oaks presentation, Krinke will discuss selected projects from her portfolio—including The Mapping of Joy and Pain, What Needs to Be Said?, the Great Island Memorial Garden, and Dream Window—which highlight a trauma-healing dialectic/continuum.
Krinke is a leader in three international artist-academic networks: Healing Place, an indigenous led collaborative focused on the Mississippi River as a place of healing and a place in need of healing; Mapping Spectral Traces, which investigates unseen and unacknowledged difficult pasts in our landscapes that continue to structure present-day social relations; and the Architecture, Culture, and Spirituality Forum which was founded to enlarge the dialogue in academia on sacred/spiritual space. Her published works include: Transcending Architecture; Contemporary Views on Sacred Space, (chapter) Contemporary Landscapes of Contemplation (editor, contributor) and chapters in Manufactured Sites: Rethinking the Post-Industrial Landscape.
Krinke is currently the Artist-in-Residence at the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis.