Berit Schurke ’16
Studio Art Major
Based in Boston, MA
She/Her/Hers
“As a landscape designer, I seek to enhance the public realm through the visible and the non-visible for humans and non-humans. With the help of phytoremediators (plants that digest soil toxins), I intend to aid landscape’s ability to adapt with the implications of climate change now and for the future. By emulating ecological processes and working with plants that stimulate all of the senses, it is my hope that such landscapes are not only beautiful but independently resilient and productive as well.”
Professional Life Post-Carleton
2019–present
- Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Master of Landscape Architecture Candidate ’22, with a focus on landscape intervention through phytoremediation and permaculture techniques
- Harvard University Graduate School of Design Research Grant: Sustaining the Boreal Edge in the Era of Climate Change (2020)
- George Chase Christian Memorial Scholarship (2020)
- Ecologies, Technologies, and Techniques Teaching Assistant (2020)
- MLA Class of 2022 Class Representative, Womxn in Design Member, International Womxn’s Week Planning Team, Landscape Representation Teaching Assistant (2021)
2018–2019
- Cornell University, Master of Landscape Architecture (transferred)
- Cornell University Excellence Award (2018)
- Cornell University Institute for Healthy Futures: Nature Innovation Challenge Winner (2019)
Favorite memory of life at Carleton
“The Studio Art Department genuinely changed my life! The faculty, staff, and student body are incredibly kind, creative, talented, inspiring, and hard-working. I loved walking through Boliou and seeing the myriad of work from visiting artists, faculty/staff, and students. The space felt as inclusive and inspirational as the community itself! There are too many favorite memories to count; Boliou and everyone in it WAS Carleton for me!”
Favorite memory of studying with Dan Bruggeman, Fred Hagstrom, and Linda River Rossi
“I never took a class with Dan, but I spoke with him in passing throughout Boliou. His kindness was greatly appreciated; I remember meeting him for the first time as a freshman. I was pinning up my first drawing exercise from Fred’s Observational Drawing class in a Weitz hallway. Dan walked by and started chatting with me about my work, about drawing, about art…. ultimately boosting the self-esteem of an otherwise very shy freshman who didn’t know a thing about drawing!
“Going on the South Pacific trip with Fred continues to be one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had. He taught me how to observe my surroundings and truly see, feel, and hear the landscape around me. He helped me understand what unique assets I could bring to the art world, as someone who had no prior experience in it. I took my first art class from him my first term at Carleton. I told him of my fears of being unprepared for a college where the caliber of my fellow students was wildly intimidating to me. I felt like an outsider and he made me feel special. He was one of the first people I had ever met that seemed to really believe in me and my future. I will never forget that!
“I had no idea that by taking an introductory photography class my sophomore year with River Rossi, that I would also be getting a lifelong mentor, role model, and dear friend. River is one of the most incredible people I have ever met. As an artist, she is visionary. As a professor, she is intuitive and inspiring. As a friend, she is bursting with kindness, patience, and compassion. As a human, she is strong, badass, and one helluva hardworker. River framed the world for me in a way I had never seen it before and because of her, I found my dream field of work, landscape architecture. She is sensitive to all forms of life, human and non-human, and this is visible in her work. Such a sensitivity continues to inspire me in my path towards my career. I am so grateful to have her in my life! She spreads sunshine everywhere she goes, with everyone she meets!
“As a landscape designer, I seek to enhance the public realm through the visible and the non-visible for humans and non-humans. With the help of phytoremediators (plants that digest soil toxins), I intend to aid landscape’s ability to adapt with the implications of climate change now and for the future. By emulating ecological processes and working with plants that stimulate all of the senses, it is my hope that such landscapes are not only beautiful but independently resilient and productive as well.”