Gianni Valenti (B.S. URS/B.L.A. ’22) has been selected to receive the Hunter R. Rawlings III Presidential Scholarship for his research proposal Suburban Landscapes: Representations of Inequality. The scholarship is provided through the Hunter R. Rawlings III Cornell Presidential Research Scholars program, aimed to support a select group of undergraduate students across the university in their respective research endeavors.
His research will challenge the notion of “The American Dream” and assessing that phenomena as a construct of suburban advertising, which seemed unachievable for many marginalized communities at the peak of suburban sprawl in the mid 20th century.
“Framing my research, I am asking the question ‘what patterns can be seen in composition, representation, and critique of suburban landscapes in terms of social mobility and equality?’”
The development of this research topic began through his participation in Assistant Professor Jennifer Minner’s The Promises and Pitfalls of Planning class this past spring, where he crafted a small photobook and an accompanying poster series to support his final project on photo-journaling of these suburban communities.
Gianni intends to mold together three different viewpoints of urban planning, landscape architecture, and visual studies to examine these patterns in suburban communities ranging in areas of economic policy, environmental racism, and physical representation. As a primary research method, he hopes that photography will continue to help capture the history of these communities and projects towards a future model of a community that reclaims these spaces for racial, gender, and sexuality inclusion.
Following his written and photographic analysis, Gianni hopes to set off on a road trip to visit significant examples of traditional 1950s suburbs, the suburbs of today, those that aim to predict the future of suburban living.
“It’s important to me, as an artist, for this journey to be by car because not only does it personally connect me to the landscape but it also works to express the connectedness of these places to each other, the cities they encircle, and the minority communities they also exclude.”
Gianni is a rising junior at Cornell, pursuing a double major in urban and regional studies and landscape architecture. Combining these two fields in his education, he aspires to engage in topics surrounding this intersection.