From Responding to Solving: The New Role of Eco Artists

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of presenting a lecture for WEAD, Women Eco Artists Dialogue, a pioneering network of feminist eco artists, educators, curators, and writers working toward the goal of a just and healthy world. WEAD represents nearly three decades of collaboration and resource sharing among feminist eco artists throughout the world, making it important as both a contemporary cooperative and a valuable source of feminist eco art history.

My presentation, “Art as Verb: Collaborating with Ecology,” was the third installment of WEAD’s Arts and Activism Web Series, which focuses on ways artists are actively engaged in promoting climate solutions. This focus makes WEAD’s series unique; while many arts and ecological organizations talk about ways artists can respond to or raise awareness about the climate crisis, few address artists as active participants in solving the problems wrought by climate change. Since I’ve been working more and more in recent years to create artworks that actively solve climate problems and address water issues, it was exciting for me to participate in this series and join with WEAD in re-imagining the role of eco artists.

You can check out a recording of my digital lecture below, and do let me know what you think. Leave a comment on my blog, or reach out to me on social media.

With International Water Day coming up on March 22, there’s a lot of good work to be excited about—like “Embodied Climate Justice,” the next installment in WEAD’s Arts and Activism Series—and a lot of very pressing water and climate issues to give us concern. I hope that artists can continue not only to respond to these issues but to step forward more and more as active players in solving the problems we face.