Concerning Landscape
info@concerninglandscape.orgConcerning Landscape is an interdisciplinary arts and ecology organization dedicated to land care and community-rooted stewardship in the northeast San Fernando Valley. Through site-specific projects and public programs, we engage the ecological and cultural histories of the Angeles National Forest and the San Gabriel and Verdugo Mountain foothills. Centering Indigenous knowledge and practice, we work to deepen public understanding of regional biodiversity and fire-adapted ecologies, cultivating practices of care attuned to place.
Our three Major Initiatives at this time include:
No Canyon Hills (NCH) NCH is a community coalition forged in solidarity with the plant and animal communities of the Verdugo Mountains in Los Angeles, ancestral land and unceded territory of the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians, and the Gabrieleno (Tongva) Band of Mission Indians. Catalyzed by a proposal to build a luxury gated development on 300+ acres of intact native habitat in the Verdugos, NCH deploys cooperative actions and interventionist strategies across social, political, educational, and legislative registers. NCH works as a multiform entity to conceive and realize urgent anti-colonial land conservation solutions.
Support for No Canyon Hills comes from Metabolic Studio and the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment.
View the coalition page: No Canyon Hills
Transverse Range
Transverse Range is an interdisciplinary office for ecological inquiry and cultural work, rooted in the foothills of Tujunga. Situated within the dynamic ecotone of the Transverse Ranges, the residency invites writers, researchers, designers and cultural practitioners to engage deeply with the local ecology, Indigenous histories, and evolving land-use narratives of the northeast San Fernando Valley. Through seasonal residencies, public programs, and collaborative fieldwork, the program cultivates a growing network of interdisciplinary practitioners committed to expanding place-based knowledge and fostering reciprocal relationships with the land. By centering localized observation, critical inquiry, and creative response, the residency aims to generate new understandings of this fire-adapted, biodiverse region—its layered histories, present vulnerabilities, and future possibilities.
Chaparral Commons (CC)
CC is a site-specific educational garden-in-progress at the Transverse Range Residency in Tujunga, designed to model the native chaparral ecosystem and to serve as a place of reorientation—away from centuries of fire suppression and extractive land use, and toward an ethic of fire-adapted stewardship informed by Indigenous knowledge systems. Rooted in experiential education and community participation, the garden will function as a living classroom, reconnecting residents of the wildland-urban interface with the ecological rhythms and cultural practices that have long shaped this landscape. Chaparral Commons seeks to recenter such practices at the scale of the residential+/community garden.
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Copyright 2025 / Concerning Landscape, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
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