Art and Creativity in an Era of Ecocide

Embodiment, Performance and Practice

Anna Pigott, Owain Jones, Ben Parry, Anna Pigott, Owain Jones, Ben Parry

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9781350237223
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350237254
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art & Politics

What can creativity achieve in an era of ecocide? How are people using creative and artistic practices to engage with (and resist) the destruction of life on earth? What are the relationships between creativity and repair in the face of escalating global environmental crises? Across twelve compelling case studies, this book charts the emergence of diverse forms of artistic practice and brings together accounts of how artists, scholars and activists are creatively responding to environmental destruction.

Highlighting alternative approaches to creativity in both conventional art settings and daily life, the book demonstrates the major influence that ecological thought has had on contemporary creative practices. These are often more concerned with subtle processes of feeling, experience and embodiment than they are with charismatic 'eco-art' works. In doing so, this exploratory book develops a conception of creativity as an anti-ecocide endeavour, and provides timely theoretical and practical insights on art in an age of environmental destruction.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Dedication Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Author Biographies
• Introduction
• 1 A conversation through listening to everyday walks
• 2 Entangled encounters with an estuary: Making-with, making as coping
• 3 Behavioural adaptation through reflective imagination via artistic experience in an era of ecocide
• 4 Deep materialism and care-taking: A study of material relationships for the twenty-first century
• 5 Willow, weaving, worlding and a politics of change
• 6 Be mindful: Plant intelligence, art and patience
• 7 The beckoning silence: Reconnecting humanity and nature on the Silent Trail
• 8 Ancient boglands and the Irish peat industry: Does culture mitigate ecocide?
• 9 Interim Bangalore: Bodies as Sensory Data Collectors
• 10 Rewriting the machinic Capitalocene: Using speculative fictional methods
• 11 Incendiary: Curating art protest in the toxic airs of Stroud’s rural green idyll
• 12 A zone to defend: The role of art and ritual in prefiguration
• 13 Did the sky used to be full of birds?
• Index
• Copyright Page