Final Project

Art H 309

Fin Cohen-Porter

The climate crisis of the human-centered era of the earth’s history called the anthropocene is perhaps the only topical issue that truly affects every single human on the planet. Although those in positions of less privilege are affected disproportionately, including, notably, indigenous communities who rely on the land to survive, climate change is an issue that has devastating implications for the future of the whole human race. Once this fact is acknowledged, the question then becomes: where do we go from here? How do we protect ourselves from climate grief while also mitigating the consequences of unconstrained consumptionism? In order to address the mounting climate crisis, my project argues that it’s necessary to cultivate a biophilic mindset in the next generation, by bringing nature back into the home from where it has been forcibly separated. Anthropogenic art is an inclusive way to bring climate issues down to the human level, regardless of class and societal privilege to participate in science. It is only by combining care for the natural world and understanding of the current state of the anthropocene in youth that we will ever see change. These themes, albeit on a much smaller scale, are what I attempted to represent in my final art piece of the quarter.

Firstly, the concept of a biophilic mindset. Jeremy Rifkin’s The Age of Resilience is structured around the central idea of a need for a shift in mindset on a global scale to combat the climate crisis. Mostly focused on capitalism and economic structures, Rifkin draws attention to the problems that arise when human society is structured around efficiency rather than resilience. It is, as we are figuring out more than ever, a vicious cycle; overconsumption of resources pushes climate disasters ever forward, which in turn makes waves in the systems that hold up production in human society. Without a fundamental recentering of resilience in global priority, we are driving ourselves and the rest of the living world towards a bleak future. To try to mitigate the damage, Rifkin focuses on the importance of cultivating empathy and “biophilia consciousness” in the next generation. Biophilia is the idea of the human being as an inseparable part of nature, belonging to and being of it. The idea that it is possible to push nature away, to view it as a resource existing outside of ourselves, is a fallacy perpetuated by capitalism. In order to see any real change in the world, it is the youngest generation that has to be raised with biophilia, and, by extension, empathy for the natural world, in mind.

One way to encourage biophilia in youth is through wild play. Allowing children to exist freely in nature has been shown to promote the development of fine motor skills, proprioception (the concept of where different body parts exist in relation to each other), healthy physical activity, and more. The much more long-term significance, however, is that wild play, as explored in The Geography of Childhood by Nabhan and Trimble, encourages children to care about the natural world. It’s not only children that bringing nature back into connection with daily life benefits, as studies have shown nature experience to improve sleep, reduce stress and negative emotions, and generate a sense of meaning to life for people of all ages. A notable way to bring nature back inside the home and interact with concepts of biophilia is through art. Art is unlike data or nature experience in the way that it’s unconstrained by social privilege, economic standing, or any other limiting factors. Creation of art as a means of engaging with nature, nurturing empathy, or healing from climate grief can occur in the most baren of urban environments, with any level of ability. To quote Guy Abrahams (Art+Climate=Change), “art can create the empathy, emotional engagement, and cultural understanding needed to bridge the gap between climate science and effective climate policy.” Creation of art is a necessary middle step in bringing the climate crisis back down to the human level.

It’s these topics of biophilia, youth, and inclusive creation that I tried to emulate in my final project. For the initial aesthetics of my idea, I was inspired by Grasslands Repair, an installation by architects Mauro Baracco and Louise Wright and artist Linda Tegg. The installation, incorporating 10,000 living plants of 65 species, is a commentary on the intersection between nature and architecture, exploring how architecture can “play a role in repairing the places it is part of,” to quote the curators. To emulate this idea of bringing nature back into the home, it was important to me to incorporate a living component in my own project. One of my biggest inspirations for this was Diana Lelonek, an artist who displays observation-style art pieces combining man made waste materials with living plant matter. Her works such as “Bones of all man” (Center of Contemporary Art, Toruń, 2016) and “Center for The Living Things” ( ROD, Warszawa, 2016) showcase the concept of entanglement, showing how interwoven nature is with human existence and discrediting the concept of separating the two. The motif of the children’s style mobile ties everything back into involvement of the younger generation.

I’m far from the first person to use aesthetics of hanging nature. In the inspiration phase of my project drafting, I stumbled upon the hanging art installations of Rebecca Louise Law. Law creates art installations with dried and suspended flowers, cocooning the viewer in a three-dimensional experience meant to comment on the relationship between humans and nature. Obviously my project is much smaller in scale, but I was heavily inspired by the aesthetic effect of suspended flora. I also wanted to use trash and found objects as much as possible. I find it mildly counterintuitive, while admittedly sometimes necessary, when art pieces generate a large quantity of waste in the creation process. I have a great deal of respect for artists who use recycled materials in their art, and I think it’s especially important and fitting when commenting on humanity’s consumerist lifestyle. My biggest criticism of anthropogenic art is that it often looks at the climate crisis from a very privileged perspective. Eco-villages, performance art, and waste-generating artistic processes often rely on the idea that the viewer has the funds to make a large-scale change in their consumption practices, enough to offset the cost of the art. This often just isn’t the case; some people shop fast fashion because that is the clothes they can afford to buy. Art creation, however, can happen on any scale, again citing Dana Lelonek as an example.

The intention of my final project was to combine the themes of low-budget creation, cultivating biophilic consciousness in youth, and bringing nature back inside the home in one healing-based art project. I included a living component and found objects as a statement on low-budget and low-impact creation, engagement with non-human processes in everyday life, and forced entanglement with nature and human impact from an early age. By encouraging similar engagement with art, topics of biophilia and empathy, and bringing the climate crisis down to a human level, I believe that humanity can make a change in the state we have put the planet in, and begin to be a force of healing in the organism that is our natural world.

Works Cited/Accessed

Rifkin, Jeremy. The age of resilience: Reimagining existence on a Rewilding Earth. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 2022.

Fowkes, Maja, and Reuben Fowkes. Art and climate change. London: Thames and Hudson, 2022.

Nabhan, Gary Paul, and Stephen Trimble. The geography of childhood: Why children need wild places. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1994.

Martínez, Pablo, and Emily Pethick, eds. Artistic Ecologies : New Compasses and Tools. Translated by Nicholas Callaway and George Hutton. Zagreb, Croatia: What, How & for Whom WHW, 2022.

Gellatly, Kelly, Bronwyn Johnson, and Guy Abrahams. Art + climate = change. Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Publishing, 2016.

“Mental Health Benefits of Nature.” NAMI California, April 22, 2021. https://namica.org/blog/mental-health-benefits-of-nature/#:~:text=Access%20to%20nature%20has%20also,sense%20of%20meaning%20to%20life.

Pitcher, Sadie. “The Climate of Art: The Importance of Art in Driving Positive Change.” SfS, February 3, 2023. https://www.sustainabilityforstudents.com/post/the-climate-of-art-the-importance-of-art-in-driving-positive-change#:~:text=In%20the%20book%20Art%2BClimate,for%20societal%20and%20cultural%20change.

Douglas, Kate, and Joe Douglas. “Green Spaces Aren’t Just for Nature – They Boost Our Mental Health Too.” New Scientist, November 27, 2023. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24933270-800-green-spaces-arent-just-for-nature-they-boost-our-mental-health-too/.

Artworks Referenced

Grasslands Repair. Baracco+Wright Architects with Linda Tegg, Repair, 2018, Installation View. Photo: Rory Gardiner

‘Still Life, 2016’ Solo Exhibition Broadway Studio and Gallery Letchworth, UK

“Bones of all man”, installation view, Center of Contemporary Arts, Toruń, 2016

Diana Lelonek “Rama Habitat”, “Center for Living Things” sorozatból / From the series “Center For Living Things”, 2017