Ecoart in Action - by Amara Geffen & Ann Rosenthal & Chris Fremantle & Aviva Rahmani (Paperback)

About the Book

"Compiled from 67 members of the Ecoart Network, a group of more than 200 internationally established practitioners, Ecoart in Action stands as a field guide that offers practical solutions to critical environmental challenges. Organized into three sections-Activities, Case Studies, and Provocations-each contribution provides models for ecoart practice that are adaptable for use within a variety of classrooms, communities, and contexts."--

Book Synopsis

Ready-to-go, vetted approaches for facilitating artistic environmental projects

How do we educate those who feel an urgency to address our environmental and social challenges? What ethical concerns do art-makers face who are committed to a deep green agenda? How can we refocus education to emphasize integrative thinking and inspire hope? What role might art play in actualizing environmental resilience?

Compiled from 67 members of the Ecoart Network, a group of more than 200 internationally established practitioners, Ecoart in Action stands as a field guide that offers practical solutions to critical environmental challenges. Organized into three sections--Activities, Case Studies, and Provocations--each contribution provides models for ecoart practice that are adaptable for use within a variety of classrooms, communities, and contexts.

Educators developing project and place-based learning curricula, citizens, policymakers, scientists, land managers, and those who work with communities (human and other) will find inspiration for integrating art, science, and community-engaged practices into on-the-ground environmental projects. If you share a concern for the environmental crisis and believe art can provide new options, this book is for you!

Review Quotes

"Ecoart in Action is an extensive and invaluable field guide to the ways in which the arts can raise consciousness and instigate action on ecological issues. Transformative projects are carefully laid out by an amazing group of artists and writers whose dedication to the issues goes back decades. Packed with brilliant ideas for a vast number of contexts and participants, this book is crucial to our hopes for a sustainable future."--Lucy R. Lippard, art critic and author of Undermining: A Wild Ride Through Land Use, Politics, and Art in the Changing West

"Art is essential to our movements: environmentalists have always been good at appealing to the hemisphere of the human brain that values bar graphs and pie charts, but the message of our peril needs to get across in far more visceral ways as well. And here artists are as important as scientists, as this wonderfully comprehensive account makes clear."--Bill McKibben, environmentalist and author of The End of Nature

"Even as California combusts, Greenland's vaulting ancient ice dome sweats, and seas swell, this Anthropocene period of Earth history, hubristically named by and for our species, is in its earliest formative stages. That's both good and bad news. The bad news, of course, is that we haven't seen anything yet. The good news is that humanity and the wider living world won't see the worst outcomes if we all spread the activities, learn from the case studies and amplify the provocations offered in this vital field guide to ecoart in action."--Andrew Revkin, journalist, educator, musician, and author of five environmental books, including The Burning Season and The North Pole Was Here

About the Author

Amara Geffen (Editor)
Amara Geffen is Emerita Professor of Art at Allegheny College and the founder and director of the Art & Environment Initiative in Meadville, Pennsylvania. She has received numerous awards for her collaborations with local community and state government agencies in Northwestern Pennsylvania.

Ann Rosenthal (Editor)
Ann Rosenthal received her MFA from Carnegie Mellon University in 1999, focusing on environmental and community art. She received the "Woman of Environmental Art" Conservation Award from PennFuture in 2020.

Chris Fremantle (Editor)
Chris Fremantle has been involved in public art for more than 25 years, producing several award-winning environmental projects. He is chair of the Art Focus Group for the Ramsar Culture Network and has served on the Executive of the Scottish Artists Union.

Aviva Rahmani (Editor)
Aviva Rahmani is an ecoartist whose work has been exhibited, published, and funded internationally. She is an affiliate with the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder and gained her PhD from the University of Plymouth, UK.