Daniel Coombes
Witnessing Landscape Contemplation: Three arrivals of contemplation in Aotearoa re-enacted through a Pākehā landscape practice
The contemplation of land has played a significant role in producing Aotearoa’s settler-colonial landscapes. This PhD practices a witnessing of contemplation that aims to reckon with Aotearoa’s settler-colonial present by entering into ethico-political relations with its past and possible futures. The PhD re-enacts three arrivals of contemplation in Aotearoa from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries through film, installation, landscape design, image and field-based projects. The three arrivals of contemplation traversed in this research are the collection and image-making practices of botanists and artists on board Cook’s first voyage in 1769, the surveyor-artists arriving with the New Zealand Company in 1839, and my Pākehā ancestors arriving in 1847. Respectively, these arrivals are scientific, financial, and ancestral; however, contemplation and settler-colonialism are common to each of them. Witnessing contemplation through re-enacting specific historical events is a mode of inquiry that aims to identify and disclose landscape contemplation happening in the present and to design with it differently in the future. Where contemporary landscape architecture distances itself from contemplation by shifting away from a pictorial experience of land or seeing landscape as an extractable resource, this PhD finds contemplation more deeply entangled with the traditions of Western landscape design and its present-day practices. This creative practice PhD, therefore, inquires into the relations between contemplation and landscape and trials possible futures for landscape contemplation as a collective and liberating way of seeing land in Aotearoa.
Supervisors
Dr Hannah Hopewell and Associate Professor Simon Twose
Publications
Book Chapters
Coombes, D. 2025. Collective Contemplation: Landscape Futures and the Wellington Town Belt, in Collective Landscape Futures, edited by Ed Wall, Anushka Athique Winterbottom, and Duncan Goodwin. New York: Routledge (Forthcoming).
Coombes, D. 2024. From Fieldwork to Theory Work, in Fieldwork in Landscape Architecture: Methods, Actions, Tools, edited by Thomas Oles and Paula Horrigan. New York: Routledge.
Journal Articles
Coombes, D. 2025. Media-to-Nature. LA+ Interdisciplinary Journal of Landscape Architecture, 23: (Forthcoming).
Conference Paper in Published Proceedings
Coombes, D. 2024. Everywhen-to-Nature. Everywhen: 29th International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA). Brisbane: ISEA: (Forthcoming).
Coombes, D. 2021. Self (Field) Work. Stop and Think: European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools (ECLAS).” Uppsala: ECLAS: eISBN 978-91-85735-99-0.
Coombes, D. 2019. Practicing Theory. Lessons from the past, visions for the future: Celebrating one hundred years of landscape architecture education in Europe: European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools (ECLAS). Ås: ECLAS: ISBN: 978-82-575-1642-0.
Coombes, D. 2015. Landscape Urbanism for Urban Governance? ArchDesign ‘15: On Current Trends and Methods. Istanbul: Dakam, 2015: ISBN: 978-605-9207-06-5.
Coombes, D. 2012. Getting to Know the Death of the Author. Archhist ’12: Architecture, History, Art. Istanbul: Dakam: ISBN: 978-605-4514-04-5.
Creative Work Publications
Coombes, D. 2024. The Declassifying Forecourt. LA+ Interdisciplinary Journal of Landscape Architecture, 20: (Forthcoming).
Coombes, D. 2024. Kinship-to-Nature. You are Here: Mapping all my Relations, XXV: (Forthcoming).
Exhibitions/Installations
Coombes, D. 2024. A Dash of Home. Tuku Iho: Matariki Exhibition. Video work. Te Wāhanga Waihanga-Hoahoa Wellington Faculty of Architecture and Design Innovation: Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington: 27 June – 10 July 2024.
Coombes, D. 2024. Capital-to-Nature. Participatory installation. Te Wāhanga Waihanga-Hoahoa Wellington Faculty of Architecture and Design Innovation: Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington: 30 April – 2 May 2024.
Coombes, D. 2024. A Dash of Home. Film Geographies screening at Association of American Geographers (AAG). Video work. Coworking Hub Community Centre: Honolulu: 18 –19 April 2024.
Coombes, D. 2023. A Dash of Home. Justice In-Motion: Tika Just Environments Lab. Video work. Studio Pacific Architects: Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington: 24 August 2023.
Coombes, D. 2022. Plantnet. EOYE (End of Year Exhibition). Video work. Te Wāhanga Waihanga-Hoahoa Wellington Faculty of Architecture and Design Innovation: Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington: 4 – 21 November 2022.
Coombes, D. 2009. Paint-Scape. Landscape installation. Unitec Institute of Technology: Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland; 20 – 30 March 2009.
Conference Presentations
Coombes, D. November 2024. Mapping-to-Nature. More-than-Human Mappings. Livingmaps Network Conference: London (Online).
Coombes, D. May 2023. Collective Contemplation: Landscape Futures and Settler-Colonial Devices. Collective Landscape Futures. University of Greenwich: London (Online).
Hopewell, H. & Coombes, D. January 2023. Pre/Non/Meta Modern: Shifts, Tensions, Pluralities in Landscape Relationality. The Metamodern in Literature, Art, Education, and Indigenous Cosmologies: An Interdisciplinary Symposium: Metamodern Creatives. Auckland University of Technology: Auckland.
Coombes, D. May 2022. The (Dis)carded Ecologies of Drawing: Intrusions and their Interventions. Ecologies of Drawing: Drawing Research Network (DRN). Loughborough University: Loughborough (Online).
Coombes, D. May 2015. For Tomorrow’s Emergence. Agenda Tomorrow: 8th International Conference on Planning and Design (ICPD). National Cheng Kung University: Tainan.
Coombes, D. November 2014. Landscape Ethnography. Sensual Landscapes of Ethnography: Contemporary Ethnography Across the Disciplines (CEAD). The University of Waikato: Kirikiriroa Hamilton (Online).
Coombes, D. December 2012. Materialising the Designer. Materialities: Economies, Empiricism, & Things: Cultural Studies Association of Australasia (CSAA). The University of Sydney: Sydney.
Coombes, D. October 2012. Thinking the After-Thought. Affecting Deleuze: A Conference on the Ethics of Gilles Deleuze. The University of Auckland: Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.
Coombes, D. July 2012. From the Visual to the Aesthetic. Ethics and Aesthetics of Architecture and the Environment: International Society for the Philosophy of Architecture (ISPA). Newcastle University: Newcastle.
Awards
Honourable Mention in the LA+ Interdisciplinary Journal of Landscape Architecture international design competition LA+ EXOTIQUE, 2023 with the project The Declassifying Forecourt.