Art and Creativity in an Era of Ecocide: Embodiment, Performance and Practice

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Description

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.

Reviews

This book address some of the most urgent ecological issues of our time from a wide range of creative perspectives. As such, it offers readers a variety of valuable prompts to alternative and much needed ways of thinking and acting. * Iain Biggs, Visiting Research Fellow, Environmental Humanities Research Centre, Bath Spa University, UK *
A real gem which can immediately be taken to the classroom and into ones own writing. The myriad disciplinary voices work exceptionally well here, all trying to look through and beyond ecocidal gloom, violence and mourning towards something more attentive, feeling and radically grounded. It adds something urgent yet subtle to the scholarship.' * Andrew Patrizio, Professor of Scottish Visual Culture, University of Edinburgh, UK, and author of The Ecological Eye: Assembling an Ecocritical Art History (2018) *

Author Bio

Anna Pigott is Lecturer in Human Geography at Swansea University, UK. Working in the field of Environmental Humanities, she is particularly interested in the impact of art and storytelling on our responses to environmental, social and economic crises. Owain Jones is Emeritus Professor of Environmental Humanities at Bath Spa University, UK. He has published over eighty scholarly articles and edited four books including Visual Culture in the Northern British Archipelago (2017). Ben Parry is Senior Lecturer and Course Leader of the MA in Curatorial Practice at Bath School of Art, Bath Spa University, UK. He is co-editor of Waste Work: The art of Survival in Dharavi (2023)and works as an artist, curator and independent researcher at the intersections of art, activism and urban space.