Abstract
Climate change threatens human and planetary health. While science has diagnosed the problem and suggested solutions, progress is often impeded by social and political realities. There is a growing recognition that the arts can play a critical role in creating the cultural change that is needed to enact sustainable solutions. Environmental scholars and artists are often isolated from each other because of limited opportunities for knowledge exchange and a lack of common methods for codification and knowledge translation, but this is beginning to change, revealing an emerging scholarly field of sustainability and the arts (SATA). My dissertation research contributes to the burgeoning field of SATA by: conducting the first critical analysis of SATA research to date; examining the challenges and barriers to SATA research and practice; supporting new approaches to SATA by conducting a Delphi study to develop a comprehensive research strategy; and cultivating collaborative partnerships and intellectual exchange among artists and scholars engaged in SATA. By gathering knowledge from researchers and artists who bring together themes, methods, and questions related to both the arts and environmental issues, I also aim to identify barriers to conducting SATA scholarship. The research presented in this study explores literature which lends to conceptualizing the core concepts of sustainability, the arts, and scholarship, and seeks to examine the spaces where these concepts intersect. Understanding this scholarly landscape will be critical to identifying priorities for making impactful and significant scholarly contributions in an emerging field.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
The Arts in Social, Political, and Community Life
KEYWORDS
Sustainability and the arts, Scholarship, Environmental art, Artistic research
