Environmentally Engaged Arts, Calls to Action, and Canadian Case Studies in Ecologies in Practice

The Authority File

In the second episode of this four-part series, Elysia French, Assistant Professor in the Department of Visual Arts at Brock University, and Amanda White, SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Sustainable Curating in the Department of Visual Art at Western University, discuss the guiding principle of “environmentally engaged arts” in their coedited title Ecologies in Practice: Environmentally Engaged Arts in Canada. Drawing on contemporary scholarship that analyzes the intersection of environmental art and social justice, they utilize this terminology to encourage nonrestrictive definitions of art that extend beyond visual artmaking. Next, they explain the intention behind the action-oriented chapter sections—Interrupt, Witness, (Re)Place, Reflect—and its narrative thread that highlights the contributors’ activism and methodology. Last, our guests consider the title’s geographical focus on Canada, parsing through the enormity of the environmental studies discipline, environmental justice issues specific to Canada, and the global scale of local case studies.

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