Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education Expanding Environmental Awareness in Through Arts

This is a fascinating account of an emerging philosophy of art, in which all artists are seen to be interacting with some aspect of nature. In the interaction the two change each other. The artist learns about changes already occurring in the environment and how they can be researched and used in her/his practice. The many fascinating examples will be of interest to any artist and especially to art and craft teachers and their students, whether in schools or elsewhere, as well as to researchers in art education. The book is likely to appeal to both environmentalists and artists, and to researchers and students of both. Some of the many aspects of nature discussed are shearing sheep and alpaca to card and spin their wool, keeping bees, following animal trails, making pottery from various local soils, exploring an abandoned gravel pit. I highly recommend its use by artists, researchers and teachers of art and craft everywhere. ” — Professor Michael Parsons, the University of Illinois, Champaign Chapters 1, 7, and 14 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com. This book presents diverse processes of crafting that bring humans, more than-humans and the environment closer to one another and, by doing so, addresses personal and educational developments towards ecological awareness. It discusses the human-material relationship, introduces posthuman theoretical entry points and reflects on the implementation of such theoretical perspectives in education. The practical examples of crafting-with the environment, the material practices and reflections posed in the book, provide insights into possible ways of levelling out human and material hierarchies. The chapters of this book give examples of artists' and crafts people's processes of thinking through materials and with materials, but also their reflections on how more-than-humans (animals and plants) craft from available materials, and how the environment and landscapes re-craft themselves through tedious processes of transformation. These case examples are founded on theauthors' own experiences with phenomena they are trying to understand and critically explore. This book is of interest to professional creative practitioners, art and craft educators, art teacher educators or researchers in the field of creative practices. It has power to inspire rethinking of present educational practices, to ignite critical reflections about materials and more-than humans, and, hopefully, motivate transformations toward more ecologically sustainable ways of life. Chapters 1, 7, and 14 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.