ASLA Conference Highlights by An Emerging Professional

It’s been a little over a month since the ASLA conference and I'm only now looking back over my notebook from that weekend in November. My notes sound more like splinters of prose than anything else; scribbles of thoughts, references for later, terms to slowly fold into my personal vocabulary. This was my first time attending a conference, and I left with more questions than answers. I’m what the ASLA calls “an emerging professional”: fresh off the mill, the university umbilical cord only recently snipped. I fell back into the seat of the student, silently absorbing peoples’ names, stories, lessons, and email addresses. 

It’s difficult to put words to the energy that the conference brings. Mainly it was empowering to be in a space where I shared the same earth-centric values as everyone around me. Simply put it felt like coming home. To hear the unique experiences of other professionals gave me new insights into how even the smallest gestures can transform an entire industry. There’s more I am still digesting from what I learned, and so I will leave you with fragments of highlighted thoughts that are steering me towards whatever is next. An ode to gardening, if you will.

slowly learning, quickly understanding…

how to keep communities together with landscape architecture – “DEFRAGMENTATION” / change is really about zoning/remapping {bermuda zoning map} / ikigai /  transitions, not boundaries / how to not do anything with land / don’t use compost for inoculation * [use intact soil] / “anti-blank slate approach” {areas of high vacancy have specific histories as to why they ended up vacant} / tools of the past will only recreate gardens of the past / devaluing labor devalues the land itself / paradise transplanted – pierrette hondagneu-sotelo / seed shares – replanting native plants / how to live lightly on the land / find the people who speak for the fish and trees / trust comes from simple acts.

— ef