The London Arts-Based Research Centre is delighted to announce the upcoming Eco-Poetics and Environmental Artivism hybrid conference in London, taking place at Pembroke Lodge in the iconic Richmond Park on July 11, 2024 (as well as fully online on July 12).
Richmond Park, a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and a National Nature Reserve (NNR) due to its rich biodiversity and important habitats, offers an immersive experience to the conference theme, which aims to explore the intersections between creativity, ecology, and environmental activism. Environmental aesthetics in different art forms such as poetry, writing, painting, photography, fashion and fabrics, sculpture, drama, dance, film and music play significant roles in shaping our aesthetic appreciation of the natural world around and within us.
We seek to bring together scholars, creatives, and arts-based researchers to discuss a wide array of topics on ecopoetics and various kinds of eco-aesthetics while looking at recent trends and innovations in the creative field, as well as the future directions of eco-creativity.
Ecopoetics, as well as other types of environmental artivism, attempts to locate us—humans—in the world, with the intention of focusing on ecology (from Greek oikos, or “home” and logos, or “reason”). So environmental aesthetics contemplate the way we exist within this oikos and how this “home” is perceived; they also navigate the borders between human and non-human nature, and how images, places, spaces and memories assist our desire to explore the self in the world. Ecopoetry and environmental artivism in general, therefore, view humanity’s relationship with the planet, instead of merely focusing on the unfolding scenes of nature through different modes of art; thus, they highlight the complexities of our interrelationships within and our responsibilities toward our environment.