A group of teachers and students on a field trip to Red Rock Canyon
Oct. 19, 2026

Students from ART 495/695: Special Topics in Art History, Land Art visited Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area on Oct. 10 for an experiential field trip. The area includes multiple examples of Indigenous petroglyphs, pictographs, and artifacts. The class was accompanied by Rayette Martin, executive director of Nevadans for Cultural Preservation, and Annette Bennett, archaeologist for the Bureau of Land Management. Both provided excellent context to who may have made these markings, how they lived, and why preserving the past is so vital. The ways Indigenous peoples coexisted with the land (and still do) is one aspect of how land is used then represented through material culture and through art.