Reimagining life as a work of eco-art

I embarked on my Ph.D. with the view that, rather than being a problem with government policy or funding, the interconnected crises that we are experiencing are the result of a crisis in thought. The research process has transformed the way I view the world, in particular my role as an artist living in the times of accelerated human induced climate change. Completed over a period of six years, my project reimagines art by reimagining the intentionally sustainable settlements known as ecovillages as works of ecological or eco-art. This introduction provides a background to, and on an overview of my study. Scroll down for access to the complete document in pdf form.

My interest in sustainability began in the 1970s during my high school years. In the 1980s it expanded into experimentation in sustainable building practices, renewable energy systems and organic and biodynamic farming methods. In the 1990s, I came into contact with Rudolf Steiner education where sustainability is enmeshed into students’ lives through art, in stories, poetry, myth, music, drama and festivals. Being involved with the school began to inform my art practice and in tandem, I developed an interest in the expansion of art into the remediation of postindustrial and post extraction sites.

In 2006 I was invited to be the ‘artist at the table’ at Penrith Lakes, a large-scale quarry site on the outskirts of Sydney which, at the time, was in the process of being remediated into a series of lakes and parklands. Unfortunately the proposal for an urban development of 4,500 homes to be built using best practices in sustainability has not, to date, been realised. In 2008 I was invited to live onsite where I stayed as resident artist for ten years. During this time, I observed the transformation of the site, as the owners and government wrestled for control of the lands, and debated the merits of undertaking the proposed sustainable residential component of the site. Over the ten years, in the area surrounding Penrith Lakes there was a mushrooming of new housing. I saw developers only paying lip service to issues of sustainability, and it occurred to me that for things to change, a fundamental element is missing. To live differently, surely, we need to think differently.  

How can this happen? My sense was that art had a role to play, but what role?  At the beginning of my research, the phrase I typed into the search engine was ‘sustainable communities who value art’. I found that such places exist and that they mostly identify as ecovillages. Whilst the ecovillage movement is little known in the mainstream, these different thinking settlements have had an impact on current trends. Things such as solar and wind power, micro hydro systems and organic gardening methods, have had their experimental beginnings in the movement. Despite their provision of a model for sustainable living, however, ecovillages have historically been seen as enclaves for societies dropouts and mostly ignored by researchers. Crucially, I found that there was no meaningful research on the role of art in what I found whilst on my field study to be inherently artful environments.

During my time in these communities, I made art with the people who lived there and learned about the ways in which art informs how they live in harmony with each other and with the natural environment. I found that in these spaces, art making is not restricted to those who are trained as artists, but rather there is an attitude that art is an elemental necessity of life that is available to all. Rather than judging artistic pursuits as good or bad art, art or not art, I found an emphasis on participation. This discovery meant that art itself needed to be reimagined, and I found that the most useful way to do so was by using the conceptual tool kit provided by the French Post Structuralist philosophers Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) and Félix Guattari (1930-1992).

For me, the philosophical thinking tools provided by Deleuze and Deleuze with Guattari provide the means for the change that is required not only in thinking about how we may live, but also in thinking differently about art. For Deleuze and Guattari, art is one of three modes of thought, and is responsible for the creation of new thinking. The other two modes are Philosophy, which is responsible for the creation of concepts, and science for the creation of material reality. Deleuze and Guattari are not interested in defining or describing what art is, however, they are more interested in what art can do. For them, what good art does, is it produces consciousness changing experiences. In the case of my study, I was interested in how art can change thinking about our relationship with the earth. As I came to understand, living sustainably means living more slowly and being happy with less. It can be argued, however, that this will not happen in the mainstream unless a slower, simpler life is creative, fun, and interesting. In other words, unless it is desirable. Thinking with Deleuze has provided me with the tools to understand how art, and more, the ways in which living life itself as a work of eco-art can function to orient humans towards desire of such a life.

In 1989, Guattari published a short essay titled The Three Ecologies in which he proposes an expanded version of eco-art. Rather than being the green or environmental art found in the mainstream art world, Guattari’s eco-art is a way of living that involves the artistic creation and amalgamation of three key areas, which he calls ecologies. These are the social ecology,  the environmental ecology and the mental ecology. Looking for the ways in which art functions to support the sustainability aims of the ecovillage dwellers, I initially focused on these three areas, looking at how art works to create the social body and the physical environment of the ecovillages and the subjectivities of the ecovillage dwellers. Secondly, in terms of the amalgamation of these three areas, I examined the ways in which the ecovillage itself could be thought of as a work of eco-art. I explored how the ecovillage functions as eco-art to counter the excessively consumptive values of the capitalist lifestyle, and the ways in which it orients the communities towards a different relationship with each other and with the natural world.

I am not suggesting that the mainstream eco-art movement is not a valid art form, nor am I arguing that eco-artists have not been able to change thinking about our relationship with the earth. Rather, my research indicates that an expanded understanding of eco-art can be considered.

Reimagining the ecovillage as a work of eco-art does not suggest that everyone needs to uproot and move into an ecovillage. Instead, it suggests an opening of the possibility that all lives can be reimagined as eco-art which would involve, as Guattari might say, composing our lives as an artist would compose colours on a palette. Being concerned with an ethics of sustainability, such an art practice fused with life, would open creative engagements that hold the potential for transformation not only of the self but of the whole earth community. It does not mean, either that trained and practicing artists must cease to operate in their practice. Instead, the artist becomes involved in a mutual enrichment of community life. In this sense, reimagining the ecovillage as a work of eco-art stands as an affirmation; engaging in life as an artistic endeavor is not a threat to the current mainstream ways of being in the world, nor is it a threat to the lives and occupations of trained and practicing artists. In contrast, an art-as-life thinking style, such as is found in the ecovillage, fosters an opening into new ways of thinking. Reimagining art, and reimagining the ecovillage as a work of art, thus illuminates the potential for the transformative processes that are inherent in our lives, our lived spaces and our communities to be oriented towards a regenerating earth and a different thinking people.

“Life is a game, play, life is a dance, dance. I’m talking about my thing, that the art of living is one of the best arts. It means you’re connected to yourself, to your environment, to nature. And you work on getting more connections so you can experience who you really are… It’s also to make progress to letting go, to experience that bliss and that happiness.”

Govinda, Billen Cliffs resident, 2018

Further writing on my thoughts on life, art and sustainability can be found on the blog page attached to this web site.