Quinn Evans’ work at Effigy Mounds National Monument is the subject of Landscape Architecture Magazine’s February 2024 cover story.
In a piece titled “Written in Relief,” writer Katharine Logan explores the ongoing impact of the comprehensive Cultural Landscape Report (CLR) and Environmental Assessment we prepared for the park in 2016. Logan describes the report as establishing “a new framework for the management of the monument’s lands that centered Indigenous perspectives in decision-making.”
Logan details decades of culturally insensitive management of the park’s earthworks, which were built by Indigenous peoples and include burial mounds. A new superintendent initiated the CLR to provide guidance for the landscape's treatment moving forward.
Our skill as landscape architects is to facilitate a conversation where everybody’s learning from each other, and we’re developing a solution that is more relevant and inclusive than any we can create without the collective team.
BRENDA WILLIAMS, FASLA
Principal Brenda Williams, FASLA, and Associate Stephanie Redding, ASLA, brought together a team that prioritized Indigenous voices, including an embedded Tribal Historic Preservation Officer. In partnership with the monument’s culturally associated Indigenous nations, we devised a road map for the rehabilitation of the landscape, preservation of the mounds, and restoration of native plant communities.
If you think you know the way to move forward and you’re just bringing [Indigenous stakeholders] to the table to confirm, it’s completely invalid and a waste of everyone’s time.
BRENDA WILLIAMS, FASLA
Eight years after the plan was finalized, recommendations like the restoration of prairie and oak savanna are slowly being implemented. Park staff continue to meet regularly with tribal representatives to discuss both individual projects and high-level management strategies – and this engagement is helping to rebuild trust among Indigenous stakeholders.
Read the full piece in Landscape Architecture Magazine Volume 114, Number 2, pages 60-79.
