Entering the Symbiocene: A Transversal Ecosophy-Action Research Framework to Reverse Silent Spring
1. Entering the Symbiocene:
A Transversal Ecosophy-Action
Research Framework to Reverse
Silent Spring
Cathy Fitzgerald | Ireland
Being in Place:
The Highs and Lows of
Sited Practice
5 t h A n n u a l P o s t g r a d u a t e
Conference in Art & Humanities,
Dundee, Scotland 25-6 November 2016
2. Outline: articulating long-term
ecological art practices
• discuss my practice as an example to argue why long-
term ecological art practices are important: ‘memes
for the Symbiocene’ not the Anthropocene
• ‘the low’ of such sited practices is they remain
marginalised in art education, art publications and
little understood by audiences
• Articulation matters! Why developing a theory-
method framework is empowering and urgent
• Why a Guattarian ecosophy – action research
framework is a valuable guide for practitioners and
educators, and for non-artists collaborating on long-
term eco-social art projects to ‘reverse Silent
Spring’ (video at end).
3. “…we live
in the most
destructive
moment in
65 million
years!”
Brian Swimme, Professor of Integral Studies and
evolutionary philosopher,
The New Story, 2006 (film)
4. Yet “there are
opportunities even in
the most difficult
moments.”
Dr. Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize winner,
first woman in Africa to get a Ph.D and
Kenyan ,Green Belt, forest planter founder
5. living in the Anthropocene
" Harraway (2015) renames the Anthropocene as the
Capitalocene, as it rests on the unsustainable
advance of a globalised, extract-at-all costs capitalism
6. the Plantationocene
Image courtesy of Irish singer-songwriter Cathy Davy’s New Forest Album 2016 video
" And Harroway further defines industrial culture has
simplified much of the planet’s living diversity into
‘slave’ monoculture plantations – the Plantationocene
7. Others confirm… we are living
in a sociopathic society
Charles Derber, 2014
8. Albrecht (2016) writes
how instead we must
urgently value the
mutual flourishing of
all life
He urges we must
quickly adopt new
thinking, life-enriching
practices, and thus
develop policies and a
politics of mutualism
entering the
Symbiocene
Slovenian non-clearfell, mixed species
permanent forestry is an e.g of mutualism
- It is illegal to clearfell forests there!!
9. Cultural responses are crucial
facts + culture =
is what changes
societal behaviour
(Lakoff, 2010)
Sacha Kagan andVolker Kirchberg, 2008
10. I’m particularly interested in creative practices
that build bridges between art, science
and other ways of knowing; that recognise the
value of lived experience, local knowledges and
the intrinsic rights of nonhuman communities to
thrive
photo: emily coghlan
11. long-term ecological art
(eco-art) practices are valuable
my eco-social art
practice is a gathering
of skills, lifeworld
experiences and
actions.
developed comprehensive online
community-building skills
since 2007
amateur filmmaker
since 2002
involved in Green
Party since 2004
amateur forester these
past 8-years
worked in research
biology for 10-years
12. Hollywood forest (2010)
I blend these various skills
and lifeworld knowledges
to explore how we can
move from the life-
limiting, unsustainability
of monoculture forestry
….to instead, investigate
new-to-Ireland
Close-to-Nature continuous
cover forestry approaches.
13. 2008 interested neighbours and local Green Party
Cllr. Malcolm Noonan, learn about about close to nature,
non clearfell forestry from Jan Alexander
ecological forestry:
for the Symbiocene
15. Hollywood forest, Blackstairs Mountains, South Carlow, Ireland (2015)
… has advanced new experimental videos that reflect my and others
new sustainable forestry experiences and learning
contributed to Irish Forestry Journal
of new-to-Ireland continuous cover forestry (CCF) approaches
I advocated this forestry management approach as the key point of Irish
Green Party forest policy (2012)
developed a political voice to champion developing international laws
against the crime of ecocide (2013)
17. why are eco-art practices
not more common?
Ecology challenges the Western worldview.
Joseph Beuys (1980s) declared everyone
should be taught ecoliteracy, he understood
ecology fundamentally
" decenters the primacy of
humankind and human concerns,
of which much art is currently
focused
" challenges the idea of the solitary
individual, the artistic genius
working alone
" that new art (and political) practices,
that emphasise the social and
environmental were needed
18. Unfortunately,
incomprehension of valuable
long-term, multi-constituent
eco-art practices continues
(Goto and Collins, 2016)
This hinders recognition and
limits understanding of such
practices in contemporary art
education and for non-artists
working on such projects
1994
2016
19. Articulacy is important! A clear
guiding theory-method framework
may help the marginalised art and ecology
field, which has struggled to convey such
practices’ complexity and value
‘Articulacy has a moral point, not just in correcting
what may be wrong views but also in making the
force of an ideal that people are already living by
more palpable, more vivid for them;
And by making it more vivid, empowering them to
live up to it in a fuller and more integral fashion.’
Charles Taylor, cited in Dean Moore, 2016
20. I began to see patterns in the
aims of such multi-
constituent practices
and
that these practices’ routinely
involve similar key
method stages (and
I’m indebted to Chris Seeley’s
art & action research here).
Case Studies: Helen Mayer Harrison
and Newton Harrison
(US, watersheds, forests, rivers, lagoons,
meadows, ecosystem policy)
Insa Winkler (Germany, pigs, Oak
forests)
Simon Read (UK, rivers, estuaries)
Deirdre O’Mahony (Ireland, peat-lands)
Ursula Biemann (global migration,
resources, forests, rights of nature)
My practice (forests, ecocide law
advocacy)
21. Paul Elliott (2012) briefly applied
Felix Guattari’s lifetimes’ work
on the theory and applications of
transversality and his last
writings of ecosophy and
chaosophy to ecological art
practices (to the Harrisons, Mel
Chin’s work)
While not examining eco-art
practices specifically, Iain Biggs
(2014a,b,c) analyses in applying
transversality to deepen
understanding of multi-
constituent art-led practices are
also important
22. Explored Guattari’s applied theory
of transversality, which is much
extended for an ecological context in
his last book Chaosmosis: An Ethico-
Aesthetic Paradigm (1992)
and his last
‘Re-Making Social Practices’ (1992)
article.
The late ecosocial activist-
therapist-theorist and new
media enthusiast, Félix
Guattari (1930-1992)
23. Guattari understood that
" the environmental crisis was rooted in calcified mental and
unquestioned social practices
" that capitalism seizes people’s minds as an ‘overcode’:
" that the politics of the left or right cannot defeat it
" and that a scientific - technological paradigm was gravely
insufficient to counter its pervasiveness (this does not treat
the root of the planetary crises)
" the utmost necessity to ‘re-make social practices’ and re-think
politics, that we must move from a scientific to an ethico-
aesthetic paradigm
24. Guattari’s ecosophy
" we need to advance “the three
ecologies”, the mental, social and
environmental spheres together,
speaks to the aim and potential of
long term eco-social art practices
priorities
" I call ecological art practices “eco-
social art practices”, to underline
that these practices are not only
about environmental restoration or
resilience, but act politically as a form
of creative resistance
Guattari understood through applied therapeutic practice and
his lifelong political activism, why and how capitalism, particularly
globalised capitalism, and the western worldview is sociopathic
and why we need to advance the “three ecologies”,
the mental, social and environmental spheres together
to advance effective societal change
25. Guattari argues
" the means to advance
resistance to capitalism lies
in micropolitical
assemblages that operated
transversally, that ‘softly
subvert’ the status quo
So my transversal practice aims
to softly subvert the
stranglehold of unsustainable,
industrial monoculture forestry
26. Through Guattari we
can learn that
sustainability is
contingent, emergent
Rather than trying to
enforce one-size fits-all
sustainability directives, we
learn that enacting life-
sustaining thinking &
practices is an ever-evolving
process, that is enriched by
democratic participation
and different ways of
knowing the world.
So, Guattari’s ecosophy
identifies the target, main
components and potential
of transversal practices
27. (Reason et al., 2009) A means to articulate the main method stages
of eco-social art practices
28. 2) Action research –
a methodology approach for
eco-social complexity
action research is not a prescriptive
model but a reactive pathway, each
step allows plenty of opportunity
for creativity and serendipity, action
and reflection.
29. This is what you might have encountered
If you had asked what my practice was
at the start of my
Hollywood forest project …
31. practical challenges
In articulating my practice,
action research identifies and
orders a repeating cycle of
method stages, from worthwhile
purposes to….
Employing the practical skills and learning of
continuous cover forestry from forestry contractor,
Sean Hoskins
32. to valuing many ways of
knowing (experiential, lived,
traditional, Indigenous knowledge)
Being-in-the-forest reminds us of the
complex interconnections that foster a
thriving forest
34. Artistic knowing
is essential
in action research for
sustainability, to
translate
experiential
knowing and overall,
to weave other
ways of knowing
into cohesive and
engaging projects
(Chris Seeley, 2011, 2014)
35. " Hollywood forest is a home to others
participation and
democracy stage:
developing ideas for
practices that extend a
duty of care to
others, including the
non-human
36. participation and democracy stage:
leads to new knowings and relevant
life-sustaining policies
New sustainable forest policy
37. action research
prioritises an emergent
communicative space
for exchanges and
learning
Sharing views, inviting comments with foresters, landowners, carpenters,
art officers, artists, curators, tree lovers: Hollywood, 2014
38. Action research therefore
confirms what pioneers of long
term ecological art practice, the
Harrisons, have argued:
that the most valuable outcome of
their multi-constituent practice is
‘conversational drift’ :
how the questions, the new
images, texts, diverse perspectives,
develop a communicative means
for envisioning new values,
possibilities, practices and policies
for a specific context and
environment
39. And action research orders the complex iterations
of a transversal practice as a recognisable cycle of
activities
Action research’s recognised terms, overcome the
confusion such exploratory practices create and
encourages easier peer-to-peer learning
In these urgent times, we need a recognised means
to compare effective practices and to encourage
more people to creatively engage with eco-social
concerns.
40. SUMMARY:
thus, through my research I argue that a:
Guattari ecosophy - action research framework
significantly improves the articulation of long-term eco-social
art practices
best means to develop and maintain transversal practices
advances understanding of transversal practices for the
emergent art & ecology field and for non-artists, particularly
those collaborating on such projects.
41. audio-visual ebook and print-on-demand
version, coming soon!
Sharing the guiding theory-method
ecosophy - action research framework
as applied to my practice:
43. Watch Reversing Silent Spring (2016): summary looped
video of the 8-year ongoing Hollywood forest project
[next slide]
Notes de l'éditeur
Good morning everyone, I wish to thank Mary for inviting me to share my recent art practice-theory research. I’m a New Zealander who has been living in Ireland these last 21 years. I have recently successfully defended my doctoral research so the ideas in this talk will be available shortly.
In todays talk, I will briefly use my creative practice as an
example of why long-term ecological art practices are important: I see them as ‘memes for the Symbiocene’ not the Anthropocene
However as many of you know, an ecological worldview brings complexity to such practices. Such practices, in turn,
challenge art practice and education conventions: the low of such practices is they remain marginalised in art education, in art publications and consequently little understood by audiences
I discuss why articulation matters! And why developing a guiding theory-method framework is empowering and urgent for practitioners and educators, and for non-artists collaborating on long-term ecological arts projects.
On my website, I have 2 quotes to remind myself of the difficult context that we are working in. As you know we are living in the unprecedented age of the Anthropocene, the age when industrial western culture is now recognised as changing the geology and life-support systems of the Earth! Prof. Brian Swimme says: The struggle of embracing our moment – is the struggle that we live in the most destructive moment in 65 million years.’
And I have a quote from a forest-planter, the first woman to gain a PhD in Africa, noble peace winner Wangari Maathi, to remind me that ‘there are opportunities even in the most difficult moments’.
We know from environmental philosophers, such as Kathleen Dean Moore, that with the scientific understanding we now have of the ecological emergency, that we have a moral imperative to act, even if the consequences of our actions appear limited – this is an important point to convey to any art student or creative practitioner. To look the other way is like any other crime; morally unconscionable and it promotes the status quo. In many ways my work is directed to newcomers to the art & ecology field as I would like so many more to engage in this area –particularly as scientists are saying this is the hinge decade where we have the most opportunity to avoid the catastrophes that are rapidly unfolding.
I’ve found it useful to consider how Donna Harraway (2015) and others rename the anthropocene as the capitalocene, as it better identifies the nature of the planetary emergency – that it is fueled by the unsustainable advance of a globalised, extractive capitalism (although the roots of the problem are ancient and lie in the heart of the Western worldview which sees itself separate and devalues the nonhuman world)
Harroway further characterises a large engine of the Anthropocence as the ‘Plantationocene’
as industrial culture has simplified much of the planet’s living diversity into ‘slave’ monoculture plantations
Industrial mononculture clearfell forestry, the main type of forestry in Ireland and large parts of the colonised world, is the focus of my eco-social art practice
Others such as sociologist Charles Derber have argued that
since industrial society is causing the 6th great mass extinction -- ‘the great dying’, it means that we are living in a sociopathic culture (Derber, 2014),
(I will come back to this point later as it underlines the theorist I chose to use to significantly increase understanding of ecological art practices)
So how do we move away from the endgame of the Anthropocene?
Former Prof. of sustainability, Glenn Albrecht (2016) talks how we must urgently ‘exit the anthropocene and enter the Symbiocene’!
He argues that we must quickly adopt new thinking, new practices and a politics where mutualism is prioritised, where we value the symbiotic mutual flourishing of all life
He talks that we must develop ‘memes’ for the symbiocene – I see some longterm eco art practice, mine included, as working as powerful memes for societal learning and change; practical philosophies for living life differently, for living life well
Cultural responses are crucial for developing new life-sustaining values. Although not widely appreciated in art education or in national culture policies, at UN level it is recognised that cultural responses are one of the four pillars for driving examples of sustainablity in our local areas, for our local communities
Even recent neuroscience research as outlined by George Lakoff confirms that facts alone will not change societal behaviour -
I’m particularly interested in creative practices that build bridges between art, science and other ways of knowing;
that recognise the value of lived experience, local knowledges and the intrinsic rights of human and nonhuman communities to thrive
I see long-term ecological art practices as being very valuable;
they operate by artistically weaving art + non-art activities together in a cyclical process of questions and reflections, often to address unsustainable business-as-usual thinking and practices
In my eco-social art practice, I combine lifeworld (lived experience/tacit knowledge) and disciplinary knowledge; I weave my past experience in research science with the practice of ‘new-to-Ireland’ continuous cover forestry , and my Green Party political and policy-making experience. I utilise my video/photography and online writing skills to translate my new forest practices in the conifer plantation I live in and to make the project accessible overall to those not familiar with advances in forestry. A key practice for weaving, reflecting on and communicating this practice to a diverse audience comes from my experience in looking after an online community and my MA in Virtual realities: I have been able to manage a multi-constituent project and connect with local and secondary audiences from a rural location using social media
I blend these various skills and lifeworld knowledges to explore how we can move from the life-limiting, unsustainability of monoculture forestry
….to instead, investigate new-to-Ireland Close-to-Nature continuous cover forestry approaches.
The bottom image is of an area in the plantation that I live with, that is changing to a mixed species, permanent forest which we call Hollywood. This area is sheltered by the conifers that we have selectively felled every three years to create pockets of light, so as to encourage natural regeneration of native species.
Close to Nature forestry requires new skills of how to carefully mark trees for the future forest and selectively fell others – the conifers and native species are used together for integrated aims for biodiversity, enriched stable soils, disease resilience, carbon sequestration, firewood and future timber production. (In this image, is the 1st tree-marking workshop I held for myself and my interested neighbours; observation skills are crucial to this type of forestry)
The plantation is slowly becoming a forest. Planted about 40 years ago, the transformation project is now in its 8th year and it will take some decades to realise its potential as a truly flourishing forest. The project is echoing and enhancing the work of small numbers of professional foresters and private landowners who are beginning to imagine and practice a new forestry for Ireland. Due to the timescales involved and an industry that is currently built around even aged mono-crop timbers, changes in forestry will take time. Hollywood is the smallest Close-to-Nature continuous cover forest in Ireland but even though it is small I like to think of it as the
the little wood that could.
Because while it is a small and slow art practice
new experimental videos that reflect my and others’ new forestry experiences; forest science data from Hollywood has contributed to a recent forest journal article,
and the project has enabled me to advocate these practices as the key approach to sustainable forestry for the Irish Green Party
and from living inside Hollywood, I have developed a political voice to share news of developing laws against the crime of ecocide (how industrial practices, like monoculture forestry are a violence against life itself).
…however, despite the urgent need for new life-sustaining values, new thinking and practices, creative practices such as mine remain marginalised
For example, in Ireland, there is no mention at national level of culture having a crucial role to envisage situated and emergent, relevant and engaging ideas of sustainability
Art and ecology programes remain rare in Ireland and the UK
‘Nature’ as a thematic concern is still popular (and needed) but the potential for multi-constituent ecological art practices to play a crucial role in moving society in more life-sustaining directions, is largely under-realised in the art world and beyond
Why are eco-art practices not more common: ecology challenges the Western worldview. Beuys, in the 1980s declared everyone should be taught ecoliteracy, he understood ecology fundamentally
decenters the primacy of humankind and human concerns, of which much western art is currently focused
Ecology challenges the idea of the solitary individual, the artistic genius working alone, the possessive individualism celebrated in the neolib economy, and that creativity only resides in art
Beuys understood that new art practices, that emphasise the social and environmental were needed
creating responses for an ecological paradigm are also challenging; particularly when art career recognition and funding is still tied up largely with the creation of object based artworks
And sadly, 30 years later, ecoliteracy is still not a fundamental of art education
And 30 years on, leading practitioners are still encountering Incomprehension of their long-term, multi-constituent eco-art practices (Goto and Collins, 2016)This hinders recognition and limits understanding of such practices in contemporary art education, for non-artists working on such projects and their audiences
If we see these practices as blueprints, practical philosophies for living life differently more sustainably, then clear articulation of such practices is vital.
As philosopher Charles Taylor argues
‘Articulacy has a moral point, not just in correcting what may be wrong views but also in making the force of an ideal that people are already living by more palpable, more vivid for them;
and by making it more vivid, empowering them to live up to it in a fuller and more integral fashion.’
For what often occurs in ecological art practice, is that not only that environments are restored and new practices are adopted but practitioners mental ecologies are transformed; their lives becomes a meme
Getting to my research of articulating ecological art practices, I looked at many leading practices.
On the surface these practices seem very diverse but in my research I began to see patterns in the aims of such practices, (generally evolving new context-specific values and practices for sustainability to counter existing unsustainable situations)
and that these practices’ routinely involved similar key method stages.
While the literatures routinely categorise such practices as transdisciplinary, and they are to a point, more recent research indicates they act transversally.
That the embody the therapist-theorist and political activist, Felix Guattari’s lifetimes work on transversality. Guattari argued transversality, rather than transdisciplinary theories can significantly deepen understanding of how diverse assemblages of lived experience and disciplinary knowledge can work to foster new life values, new directions of thought and practice.
While not examining eco-art practices specifically, Iain Biggs (2014) analyses in applying transversality to deepen understanding of multi-constituent art-led practices are also important
While some have dismissed Guattari’s slim Three Ecologies book as an unfinished concept, I began to realise this recent research was identifying a greater contribution.
In particular, Elliott’s overview of Guattari’s lifetimes work and his particular application of transversality, ecosophy and chaosophy really interested me when he applied these theories briefly to deepen understanding of the the multi-constituent practices of the pioneering practices of Helen and Newton Harrison.
I realised that Guattari’s ecosophy is a means to recognise how new values, subjectivities arise from individual-collective assemblages that combine lifeworld and disciplinary knowledges, like ecological art practices
I make claims for Guattari’s theory to guide understanding of long-term eco art practices for a number of reasons. Remember when I said earlier, that western industrial culture is sociopathic, Guattari deeply understood the psychology and social aspects of the planetary predicament
He understood that the environmental crisis was rooted in calcified mental and unquestioned social practices
He understood capitalism seizes people’s minds as an ‘overcode’, (from his extensive polictical activism experience, that the politics of the left or right could not defeat it
And that a scientific -technological paradigm was gravely insufficient to counter its pervasiveness; tech advances and renewables will not treat the root of the crisis
Essentially, Guattari recognised that we must move from a scientific to an ethico-aesthetic paradigm
Many have commentated that Guattari’s ideas are complex and one can feel like one is falling down the rabbit hole chasing his ideas. However Guattari’s ideas of transversality (developed from the 70s onwards) and his key ideas that we need to advance the 3 ecologies the mental, social and environmental spheres together, speaks to the aim and potential long term eco-art practices priorities
Guattari completely understands the madness and chaos of sociopathic culture.
Because of Guattari’s “three ecologies”, I prefer to call ecological art practices “eco-social art practices”, to better emphasise that these practices enact not only environmental learning but also that they are socially transformative for their practitioners and their audiences.
Guattari realised the means to advance resistance to capitalism and outdated, life-limiting worldviews lay in micropolitical assemblages that operated and communicated transversally –
In his words, these formations become “molecular revolutions” or “softly subvert” globalised capitalism and the Western worldview –
So, I argue my transversal practice aims to softly subvert the stranglehold of unsustainable industrial forestry
Guattari’s concepts help build understanding that sustainability is contingent, an ever-evolving state that is enriched by democratic participation & different ways of knowing. He describes such practices as similar to musical ‘refrains’, that they circle a problem with various knowings, new ethical understandings and aesthetic practices – and that that these are the key components to develop ‘new lines of flight’, new values, ideas and practices.
I therefore argue Guattari’s ecosophy identifies the target, main components and potential of transversal practices.
While I can’t go into too much detail, Guattari is also incredibly useful to think about new social media technologies and how they may enable and emit the learning from transversal practices. Unlike many other social theorists, Guattari celebrated and theorised the rise of independent communicative technologies and this has been an important means to explore the under-acknowledge potential of social media for long-term eco-social art practice and what I see as the potential of massive open online courses to radically develop the art and ecology field.
Guattari’s theory while it embraces and helps us understand complexity, is itself complex and not suited to describe how one practically initiates and maintains transversal practices
Interestingly, Guattari was himself interested in action research as a method approach but this was not developed during his lifetime. (Genosko)
Through Chris Seeley’s research, I found that action research, used widely in other fields, can be used to frame Guattari’s key ideas and provide an accessible method pathway for long-term eco-social art practice. I found it matched Guattari’s ideas of transversal practice when I applied it to my own and others practices in my research. The above diagram shows how AR identifies the circular pathway of reflection * action and– it visualises why such practices are a profound departure from the narrow scientific (colonial) research model.
AR is an methodology approach for eco-social complexity, it is not a prescriptive model but a reactive pathway, each step allows plenty of opportunity for creativity and serendipity, action and reflection.
So to give an example- This is what you may have encountered if you had asked me about what my practice involved and its concerns at the beginning of my project.
To my mind, I was, through trial, error, advancing new understandings of sustainable forestry through traversing social and hands on forestry practices, through theories and life knowledges, I was embracing the complexity of working ecologically.
Edcuator and artist Charles Garioan has also thought about this and asked ‘how differently would art, science, and other disciplines be valued, … if experienced as an ecological system of ideas’ (2012), and at the same time, recognised the ‘untamed messiness of such an exploratory, experimental, and improvisational’ way of working is a threat to conventional education systems, including academia and representational art practice (2014). But I was convinced my and others long term eco-social practices were emitting valuable outcomes.``
So I identified the components/stages of my transversal practice according to an action research approach
For instance in my practice, Action Research (AR) identifies and orders a repeating cycle of method stages, from worthwhile purposes to practical challenges and the practical skills and learning I have gained from working with foresters at Hollywood
To valuing ‘many ways of knowing (experiential, lived, traditional, and Indigenous knowledge)
The experiential knowledge of being-in-the-forest reminds us of the complex interconnections that foster a thriving forest
AR also identifies why eco social art practices can include and develop scientific and traditional understandings,
My practice has contributed to this forest journal paper,
and
AR identifies in considerable detail why Artistic knowing is essential in action research for sustainability, to translate experiential knowing and
to weave other ways of knowing into cohesive and engaging projects
(Chris Seeley, 2011, 2014)
And AR identifies another key step in why such practices need to include diverse participation and inclusive democracy, even to how we might include the priorities of the nonhuman
AR also identifies why such projects encourage new dialogues and policies from all of the above
From my small 2 acre forest transformation work, my eco-social art practice and my lifeworld experience of knowing Green politics I advanced continuous cover forestry as the key point of Irish Green Party forest policy in 2012. I am currently the Greens spokesperson for forestry in Ireland
Action Research also confirms the significant outcome of such practices as evolving valuable, learning for change, communicative spaces.
Action research therefore confirms what pioneers of long term ecological art practice, the Harrisons, have argued:that the most valuable outcome of their multi-constituent practice is ‘conversational drift’ : how the questions, the new images, texts, diverse perspectives, develop a communicative means for envisioning new values, possibilities, practices and policies
And Action Research makes visible the complex iterations of a transversal practice as a recognisable cycle of activities – it speaks to Guattari’s ecosophy and ideas of the potential of transversality.
Action research also counters time-wasting in trying to develop a methodology intuitively and greatly enhances learning and peer-to-peer exchange as it establishes recognisable method terminology. I also found it significantly
clarifies the practices of key people in the art and ecology field.
In these urgent times we need a recognised means to compare effective practices and encourage more to engage with eco-social concerns.
…through my research I that the Guattari-action research model can more significantly articulate the significant potential and value of eco-social art practices
and the means to develop and maintain such practices;
The framework advances understanding of and for the emergent art and ecology field
I have produced an ebook (and print on-demand version) of the key method stages of my transversal practice (available in the coming months)
Thank you!Follow ‘the little wood that could’ at: www.hollywoodforest.com
email: cathyart@gmail.com