Ecological art is an art genre and artistic practice that seeks to preserve, remediate and/or vitalize the life forms, resources and ecology of Earth. Ecological art practitioners do this by applying the principles of ecosystems to living species and their habitats throughout the lithosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere, including wilderness, rural, suburban and urban locations. [1] [2] Ecological art is a distinct genre from Environmental art in that it involves functional ecological systems-restoration, as well as socially engaged, activist, community-based interventions. [3] Ecological art also addresses politics, culture, economics, ethics and aesthetics as they impact the conditions of ecosystems. [4] Ecological art practitioners include artists, scientists, philosophers and activists who often collaborate on restoration, remediation and public awareness projects. [5] [6] [7] [8]
Art historical precedents include environmental art, earthworks, land art, sustainable art, landscape painting, and landscape photography. While historical examples may reach back to neolithic times, according to the history published in the book, Ecovention: current art to transform ecologies, a short list of key works include Herbert Bayer's Grass Mound (1955) at the Aspen Art Institute, Aspen, CO; Joseph Beuys 1962 proposed action to clean up the Elbe River in Hamburg, German; Hans Haacke's 1965 manifesto for time-based, "natural", dynamic indeterminate art; Nicolas Uriburu's 1968 performance "Green Power, coloration Grand Canal – Venice" and Agnes Denes's 1968 performance, Haiku Poetry Burial, Rice Planting and Tree Chaining/Exercises in Eco-Logic, in Sullivan County, New York. [9] [10] [11] [12]
1969 was a watershed year for ecological art practices. Landmark accomplishments include Haacke's Grass Grows in Ithaca, NY; Alan Sonfist's activities articulating the significance of native forests in urban areas; and his action to monitor air quality in New York City. Betty Beaumont documented the clean-up of what was the worst U.S. ocean oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, while Mierle Laderman Ukeles wrote Manifesto for Maintenance Art (Spaid) In 1969, the John Gibson Gallery in New York city mounted the exhibition, Ecologic Art, that included the work of Will Insley, Claes Oldenburg, Christo, Peter Hutchinson, Dennis Oppenheim, Robert Morris, Robert Smithson, Carl Andre, Jan Dibbets, and Richard Long. [13]
In 1969–1970, Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison collaborated on mapping endangered species around the world. [14] From 1972 to 1979, Helen and Newton Harrison realize seven projects designed for and about lagoons in California. [15]
In 1971, artist Bonnie Sherk performs Public Lunch with the Animals in the Lion House of the San Francisco Zoo. She went on to found The Farm (also known as Crossroads Community in 1974 in San Francisco. The project involved growing edible crops as environmental sculpture; livestock were also raised there and it also served as a performance art venue and community education center. [16] [17] [18]
The 1972 essay, Art and Ecological Consciousness by György Kepes in his book, Arts of the Environment. [19] presents the genre as distinct from environmental art. In the 1992 exhibition and book, Fragile Ecologies: Contemporary Artists' Interpretations and Solutions, [20] art historian, Dr. Barbara Matilsky differentiates ecological art from environmental art in that the former has ethical underpinnings. [21] In 1993, a workshop and exhibition, specifically about ecological systems and art, was presented by Don Krug, Renee Miller and Barbara Westfall at the Society for Ecological Restoration in Irvine, California. The term ecovention , was coined in 1999 as a conjunction of the words ecology and intervention, in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name curated by Amy Lipton and Sue Spaid, representing artist's projects that use inventive strategies to physically transform a local ecology. In a 2006 UNESCO research report for the Art in Ecology think tank on arts and sustainability, "Mapping the Terrain of Contemporary EcoArt Practice and Collaboration", the artist Beth Carruthers uses the term Ecoart. [22]
A current definition of ecological art drafted collectively by the EcoArt Network of international artists, founded in 1998, is "an art practice that embraces an ethic of social justice in both its content and form/materials. EcoArt is created to inspire caring and respect, stimulate dialogue, and encourage the long-term flourishing of the social and natural environments in which we live. It commonly manifests as socially engaged, activist, community-based restorative or interventionist art." [23] [24]
More recently contemporary artists like Parvez M. Taj, Eve Mosher and more embrace ecological art as their medium of expression.
The 2012 book, Toward Global (Environ)Mental Change – Transformative Art and Cultures of Sustainability, proposes that the global crisis of unsustainability is a disruption of the hardware of civilization, as well as a crisis of the software of the human mind. [25] Art and Climate Change: Separate Bubbles or Mutual Membrane? theorises three key obstacles to environment-oriented change (bad ‘memes’, ‘Radical Inertia’, ‘Framed Questions’) and explores the possible role of eco-art in exposing and dissolving those obstacles. [26] The 2004 book, Ecological aesthetics: art in environmental design: theory and practice, presents an analysis of a variety of tendencies and approaches to landscape architecture, science and theory that inform research and the transformation of the landscape for over thirty years. [27] Green Arts Web, [28] compiled by Carnegie Mellon University senior librarian, Mo Dawley, is a compendium of core readings on contemporary environmental art, ecological art and theory (20th century to the present) that includes, among other sub-categories, for example, [29] deep ecology practices; [30] [31] [32] ecofeminism; [33] [34] [35] ecopsychology; [36] land ethic and bioregionalism; [37] sense of place; [38] [39] [40] and systems thinking. [41] [42]
Artists considered to be working within this field subscribe to one or more of the following principles: [43]
Ecological art involves numerous diverse approaches, including:
Contemporary ecological art has been articulated across interdisciplinary and scholarly groups in terms of life-centered issues, community participation, public dialogue, and ecological sustainability. In 1996, the educator and activist Don Krug [62] [ better source needed ] identified concepts frequently addressed by ecological artists that can be used by to interpret ecological perspectives and practices.
The following four orientations were identified: Environmental design, ecological design, ecological restoration, and social restoration.
Land art, variously known as Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks, is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, largely associated with Great Britain and the United States but that also includes examples from many countries. As a trend, "land art" expanded boundaries of art by the materials used and the siting of the works. The materials used were often the materials of the Earth, including the soil, rocks, vegetation, and water found on-site, and the sites of the works were often distant from population centers. Though sometimes fairly inaccessible, photo documentation was commonly brought back to the urban art gallery.
Ecological engineering uses ecology and engineering to predict, design, construct or restore, and manage ecosystems that integrate "human society with its natural environment for the benefit of both".
Ecocriticism is the study of literature and ecology from an interdisciplinary point of view, where literature scholars analyze texts that illustrate environmental concerns and examine the various ways literature treats the subject of nature. It was first originated by Joseph Meeker as an idea called "literary ecology" in his The Comedy of Survival: Studies in Literary Ecology (1972).
Environmental philosophy is the branch of philosophy that is concerned with the natural environment and humans' place within it. It asks crucial questions about human environmental relations such as "What do we mean when we talk about nature?" "What is the value of the natural, that is non-human environment to us, or in itself?" "How should we respond to environmental challenges such as environmental degradation, pollution and climate change?" "How can we best understand the relationship between the natural world and human technology and development?" and "What is our place in the natural world?" Environmental philosophy includes environmental ethics, environmental aesthetics, ecofeminism, environmental hermeneutics, and environmental theology. Some of the main areas of interest for environmental philosophers are:
Environmental art is a range of artistic practices encompassing both historical approaches to nature in art and more recent ecological and politically motivated types of works. Environmental art has evolved away from formal concerns, for example monumental earthworks using earth as a sculptural material, towards a deeper relationship to systems, processes and phenomena in relationship to social concerns. Integrated social and ecological approaches developed as an ethical, restorative stance emerged in the 1990s. Over the past ten years environmental art has become a focal point of exhibitions around the world as the social and cultural aspects of climate change come to the forefront.
Feminist political ecology is a feminist perspective on political ecology, drawing on theories from Marxism, post-structuralism, feminist geography, ecofeminism and cultural ecology. Feminist political ecology examines the place of intersectional social relations in the political ecological landscape, exploring them as a factor in ecological and political relations. Specific areas in which feminist political ecology is focused are development, landscape, resource use, agrarian reconstruction and rural-urban transformation. Feminist political ecologists suggest gender is a crucial variable – in relation to class, race and other relevant dimensions of political ecological life – in constituting access to, control over, and knowledge of natural resources.
Greenmuseum.org was a nonprofit online museum of environmental art. Since its launch in 2001, greenmuseum.org had become a source for information about this global art movement, which includes ecoart, land art, art in nature and related terms. It was formed by a group of artists in the San Francisco Bay Area who were interested in ecology who had observed that a museum did not exist that was dedicated to the history art and ecology.
Sustainable art is art in harmony with the key principles of sustainability, which include ecology, social justice, non-violence and grassroots democracy. Sustainable art may also be understood as art that is produced with consideration for the wider impact of the work and its reception in relationship to its environments.
Ecological design or ecodesign is an approach to designing products and services that gives special consideration to the environmental impacts of a product over its entire lifecycle. Sim Van der Ryn and Stuart Cowan define it as "any form of design that minimizes environmentally destructive impacts by integrating itself with living processes." Ecological design can also be defined as the process of integrating environmental considerations into design and development with the aim of reducing environmental impacts of products through their life cycle.
Patricia Johanson is an American artist. Johanson is known for her large-scale art projects that create aesthetic and practical habitats for humans and wildlife. She designs her functional art projects, created with and in the natural landscape, to solve infrastructure and environmental problems, but also to reconnect city-dwellers with nature and with the history of a place. These project designs date from 1969, making her a pioneer in the field of ecological-art Johanson's work has also been classified as Land Art, Environmental Art, Site-specific Art and Garden Art. Her early paintings and sculptures are part of Minimalism.
Environmentally sustainable design is the philosophy of designing physical objects, the built environment, and services to comply with the principles of ecological sustainability and also aimed at improving the health and comfort of occupants in a building. Sustainable design seeks to reduce negative impacts on the environment, the health and well-being of building occupants, thereby improving building performance. The basic objectives of sustainability are to reduce the consumption of non-renewable resources, minimize waste, and create healthy, productive environments.
Susannah Hagan, FRSA is the founding Director of R_E_D and Professor and School Research Leader at the Royal College of Art School of Architecture. She has written and lectured extensively on the theory and practice of environmental design, in particular, environmentally led urban design. Hagan's major publications include City Fights: Debates on Sustainable Cities ; Taking Shape: A New Contract between Architecture and Nature ; and Digitalia: Architecture and the Environmental, the Digital and the Avant-garde.
Kongjian Yu, is a landscape architect and urbanist, writer and educator, commonly credited with the invention of the sponge city concept, and winner of the International Federation of Landscape Architects’ Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award in 2020. He received his Doctor of Design Degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1995, his Doctor Honoris Causa from the Sapienza University of Rome in 2017, and he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in 2019. Yu was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016.
T.J. Demos is an art historian and cultural critic who writes on contemporary art and visual culture, particularly in relation to globalization, politics, migration and ecology. Currently a Professor in the Department of History of Art and Visual Culture (HAVC) at UC Santa Cruz, and the founding director of the Center for Creative Ecologies, he is the author of several books, including Against the Anthropocene: Visual Culture and Environment Today, Decolonizing Nature: Contemporary Art and the Politics of Ecology , The Migrant Image: The Art and Politics of Documentary during Global Crisis, and Return to the Postcolony: Spectres of Colonialism in Contemporary Art. Previous to his current appointment, Demos taught at University College London between 2005-2015.
Ecovention was a term invented by Amy Lipton and Sue Spaid in 1999 to refer to an ecological art intervention in environmental degradation. The Ecovention movement in art is associated with land art, earthworks, and environmental art, and landscape architecture, but remains its own distinct category. Many ecoventions bear tendencies similar to public works projects such as sewage and waste-water treatment plants, public gardens, landfills, mines, and sustainable building projects.
Linda Weintraub is an American art writer, educator and curator. She has written several books on contemporary art. Her most recent works address environmental consciousness that defines the ways cultures approach art, science, ethics, philosophy, politics, manufacturing, and architecture.
Aviva Rahmani is an Ecological artist whose public and ecological art projects have involved collaborative interdisciplinary community teams with scientists, planners, environmentalists and other artists. Her projects range from complete landscape restorations to museum venues that reference painting, sound and photography.
Bonnie Ora Sherk was an American landscape-space artist, performance artist, landscape planner, and educator. She was the founder of The Farm, and A Living Library. Sherk was a professional artist who exhibited her work in museums and galleries around the world. Her work has also been published in art books, journals, and magazines. Her work is considered a pioneering contribution to Eco Art.
‘Net positive’, from Positive Development (PD) theory, is a paradigm in sustainable development and design. PD theory was first detailed in Positive Development (2008). A net positive system/structure would ‘give back to nature and society more than it takes’ over its life cycle. In contrast, sustainable development - in the real-world context of population growth, biodiversity loss, cumulative pollution, wealth disparities and social inequities - closes off future options. To reverse direction, development must, among other sustainability criteria, increase nature beyond pre-human conditions. PD develops the tools to enable net positive design and development.
Solarpunk is a literary and artistic movement that envisions and works toward actualizing a sustainable future interconnected with nature and community. The "solar" represents solar energy as a renewable energy source and an optimistic vision of the future that rejects climate doomerism, while the "punk" refers to the countercultural, post-capitalist, and decolonial enthusiasm for creating such a future.
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