UI, WSU Team Up to Present Film about Women Landscape Architects

MOSCOW, Idaho — The departments of horticulture and landscape architecture at Washington State University and of landscape architecture at the University of Idaho have teamed up to host a special screening of the recently released documentary film “Women in the Dirt.” The film will show at the Kenworthy Theater in downtown Moscow on Nov. 15 at 7 p.m. The Kenworthy is located at 508 S. Main Street between 6th and 3rd Streets. The screening is free and open to the public.

“This beautifully made film certainly empowers women seeking entry into the profession of landscape architecture,” said Jolie Kaytes, an associate professor of landscape architecture at WSU. “ ‘Women in the Dirt’ also speaks in a moving and inspiring way to the core ideas we are teaching in the LA programs at both the U of I and WSU. We want our students to understand that designs have the potential to serve and nourish clients, citizens and the environments in which they are situated–that landscape architecture is an act of harmonizing the vitality of various living systems to create designs that are useful, beautiful and enduring.”

“Women are influencing the profession of landscape architecture more today than ever before. Women in the Dirt highlights the work of seven award-winning women who have made their mark in the field. Though each has a unique body of work, their concerns overlap in the realm of sustainability and enduring design,” said filmmaker Carolann Stoney.

Stoney said she came up with the idea for the film while she was studying landscape architecture. A short film she made about landscape architecture won the 2009 American Society of Landscape Architects Student Honors Award in Communication.

A review of “Women in the Dirt” on Laguna Dirt, a blog about outdoor living based in southern California, wrote that the landscape architects profiled in the film “are pioneers, artists, truth-seekers, and advocates for our world and the future.”

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