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Ecological art in cities: exploring the potential for art to promote and advance nature-based solutions

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Left: Eve Mosher performing HighWaterLine in New York City, 2014; right: Mosher performing HighWaterLine in Miami or situations within it (Brady 2002). Although commonly understood as the philosophical study of beauty and taste, new aesthetic theories (e.g., environmental aesthetics) emphasize the importance of multisensory immersion and how this can motivate "becomings" and self-transformations (Strewlow et al. 2004). Elizabeth Grosz (2008) describes this as a disruption resulting in new understandings and states of awareness, which may be uncertain or uncomfortable. In previous interviews, Mosher recounts the experience of walking in a south Brooklyn neighborhood where she met several homeowners who admitted they were denied flood insurance without an explanation of why from the City (Nadir 2015). One afternoon, as Mosher was drawing her line in front of their homes, the implications of sea-level rise became visible in a new way. Mosher's performance created a disruption in the everyday experience of a frontline community potentially impacted by rising seas. The work unfolds as a pedagogical process by producing a set of meanings through the viewer's participation, and highlights how communities may be excluded from conversations about climate and demonstrating that there is a need for additional tools to aid public understanding (Atkinson 2012). Mosher's work in this sense points to crucial environmental and climate justice issues, providing an example of how an artwork can offer opportunities for communities to better understand the social-ecological implications of sea-level rise. While planning her solo performance for other cities, Mosher ultimately had to consider the ethical implications of entering into a community that was not her own. She worked with the nonprofit ecoartspace to write an "Action guide" so that communities globally could recreate her project (Watts 2014). In Florida, Mosher worked with Resilient Miami to organize interactive workshops and training on how individuals can conduct HighWaterLine research in their communities. The organization also created a forum to review
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14. Ecological art in cities: exploring
the potential for art to promote and
advance nature-based solutions
Christopher Kennedy, Ellie Irons, and Patricia
Lea Watts
INTRODUCTION
Throughout history, artists have explored the natural environment in their work
and practice, from large-scale earthworks and conceptual propositions to per-
formative and community-based projects worldwide. Since the 1960s, many
artists have increasingly embraced interdisciplinary approaches to address
the impacts of urbanization, climate change, and social inequity. Commonly
referred to as ecological art, these practices often utilize or take inspiration
from the principles of ecosystems and employ site-specific, socially engaged,
and participatory practices. In many cases, ecological artworks aim to comple-
ment, examine, and advocate for nature-based solutions (NBS) or actions that
leverage nature or natural processes to address social-ecological challenges
(Matilsky 1992; Wallen 2012). As ambitious visions for NBS become both
necessary and possible, ecological art plays a critical role in advancing its
utilization, while also raising key questions about how to effectively support
and integrate artists’ visions and practices into urban planning and governance.
This chapter explores ecological art histories and future potentials, focusing
primarily on examples of artists working in urban areas. The aim is to critically
examine the role art can play in advancing NBS and to highlight the range of
innovative and creative approaches artists are experimenting with across the
globe. How effective can and should art be in promoting NBS? What aesthetic
considerations are relevant for artworks that address environmental issues
and urban life? And how can planners, municipal stakeholders, and others
effectively integrate ecological artworks and artists into decision making and
planning?
The artworks described across these sections emerge largely from a North
American context, a reflection of the positionality and expertise of the authors.
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However, the impulse to integrate art, science, and ecological thinking is
a global phenomenon. As we discuss how ecological art provides a host of
benefits to both human and more-than-human communities, it is critical to
reflect on the limitations of these practices, especially given enduring con-
cerns around power, exclusion, and equity in the field of art. For example,
Indigenous practitioners have been historically excluded from mainstream
contemporary art venues and narratives, despite a wealth of knowledge
systems and cultural practices (Ash-Milby et al. 2017). It is crucial to identify
the diverse contributions of Indigenous practitioners (McMaster 2020) and
to acknowledge how Indigenous ways of knowing inform approaches and
practices now commonplace in ecological art (Todd 2016). Additionally, in
the North American context, Black, Indigenous, and non-white immigrant
communities have been excluded from mainstream environmental narratives
and spaces (Finney 2014; Seymour 2018), and many white-led environmental
movements have long failed to effectively integrate social justice concerns
(Schell et al. 2020). While the authors are less familiar with contexts outside
North America, we recognize the need for intersectional analysis and action
is relevant in many contexts around the world, including in the Global South
where issues of exclusion and the impacts of Western imperialism and colo-
nialism endure (Checker 2008; Simbao 2015; Gómez-Barris 2017; Molho et
al. 2020). Contemporary ecological art, in many cases deeply intertwined with
mainstream Western environmentalism, has much to learn from intersectional
movements for environmental and climate justice, both in the North American
context and beyond (Nixon 2011; Demos 2016).
Considering these shortcomings, we aim to address how ecological art con-
tributes to sustainable, equitable forms of urban renewal and examine how it
can exacerbate conditions of gentrification and exclusion, among other issues
(Paperson 2014; Gould & Lewis 2016).
SITUATING ECOLOGICAL ART
There are multiple terms—from “environmental art” to “eco-art” to “eco-
logical art”—used to connote creative approaches and artistic activities that
center the environment or nature in their scope, intent, or form (Matilsky 1992;
Denes 1993; Watts & Lipton 2004; Weintraub 2012; Nisbet 2017). In this
chapter, we focus on artworks and practices that many in the field refer to as
“ecological art,” a term popularized in the 1990s to specify artworks set in the
natural environment from the 1960s onward. Some of these artworks sought
to repair damaged environments and utilize ecosystem-based approaches or
address ecological, social, and political issues, often through participatory or
community-based practices. The history of ecological art aligns in many ways
with the inception of the modern environmental movement, early environmen-
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tal justice struggles (Hare 1970), and the growth of ecological art movements
since the 1960s.1 As modern environmentalism coalesced in the wake of
Rachel Carson’s Silent spring (1962), the unrest of the 1960s propelled artists
away from object-based and pictorial representations of nature and toward
conceptual, site-specific, process-oriented, and land-based approaches, a tra-
jectory elucidated by critic and historian of environmental art Lucy Lippard
(1973).
In her book Overlay (1983), which explores the merging of art, life, and
land in prehistoric and contemporary artistic practice, Lippard describes how
“ecological art—with its emphasis on social concern, low profile and more
sensitive attitudes towards the ecosystem” (p. 229)—begins to distinguish
itself from the broader shifts within the artworld (Azhari et al. 2014; Kepes
1972). Lippard has followed the evolution of ecological art, pointing to early
examples of community-based, socially engaged art forms that continue to
inform new models of transdisciplinary collaboration between scientists and
artists (Lippard et al. 2007; Weintraub 2012; Ellison et al. 2018). As new
thinking in systems science and ecology progressed, artists experimented with
ambitious proposals to address environmental, social, and political concerns
through technological and ecologically influenced strategies that presage
current NBS approaches (Harrison & Harrison 1999; McKee 2007). Today,
fields like ecology, climatology, social science, and emerging disciplines such
as bioart, biotechnology, and multispecies studies play a critical role in how
ecological art is conceptualized and practiced (Anker & Nelkin 2003; Costa &
Philip 2008; Kirksey 2014).
In the following sections, we examine a range of selected ecological
artworks. However, considering the limitations of both space and scope, we
include Table 14.1 to provide additional examples of ecological artworks that
engage urban environments or social-ecological issues within cities. This list
is by no means comprehensive but rather a starting point to consider the multi-
plicity of approaches and contexts from ecological artists globally.
BRINGING URBAN ECOLOGICAL ISSUES INTO THE
PUBLIC REALM
Researchers increasingly discuss the critical role artists play in raising public
awareness and engagement about climate change and environmental issues
(Nurmis 2016). A study by Sommer and Klöckner (2021) highlights how
artworks that present novel solutions and offer a way for communities to
participate are often more impactful than conventional methods (e.g., main-
stream news media, scientific reports) because they can elicit a personal and
emotional connection. These strategies are crucial, particularly as scholars
and media critics continue to emphasize the insufficiency of conventional
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Table 14.1 Selected ecological artworks, 1965–2019
Name Location Artwork Year
Alan Sonfist New York City, USA Time Landscape 1965/1978
Mierle Laderman Ukeles New York City, USA Maintenance Art Manifesto 1969
Bonnie Ora Sherk San Francisco, USA Portable Parks 1970–1971
Ant Farm Berkeley, USA Air Emergency 1971
The Harrisons Los Angeles, Great Britain
(+ multiple sites)
Shrimp Farm, Survival Piece #2 1971
Hans Haacke Krefeld, Germany Rhinewater Purification Plant 1972
W. Eugene Smith Minamata, Japan Minamata, Japan 1972
Liz Christy New York City, USA Green Guerillas 1973
Patricia Johanson Dallas, USA Fair Park Lagoon 1981–1985
Agnes Denes New York City, USA Wheatfield: A Confrontation 1982
Joseph Beuys Kassel, Germany 7000 Oaks 1982
Gordon Matta-Clark New York City, USA Resource Center and
Environmental Youth Program
for Loisaida
1983
Oliver Kellhammer Toronto, Canada Lead Down the Garden Path 1988
Reclamation Artists Boston, USA Big Dig 1989
Mel Chin St. Paul, USA Revival Field 1991–
present
Shai Zakai Beit Shemesh, Israel Concrete Creek 1999–2002
Mark Brest van Kempen Seattle, USA Ravenna Creek 2002–2009
Fritz Haeg California, USA (+
multiple sites)
Edible Estates 2005–2014
Natalie Jeremijenko San Diego, CA (+ multiple
Sites)
Feral Robotic Dogs 2006
Eve Mosher New York City, USA HighWaterLine 2007
Lillian Ball New York City, USA WATERWASH 2007–2009
Francis Whitehead Chicago, USA SLOW Cleanup 2008–2012
Future Farmers San Francisco, USA Victory Gardens 2008
Yang Yongliang Shanghai, China Artificial Wonderland 2010
Lucia Monge Lima, Peru (multiple sites) Planton Movil 2010
Mali Wu New Taipei City, Taiwan A Cultural Action at the Plum
Tree Creek
2011–2012
Mary Miss New York City, USA City As Living Laboratory 2011–
present
Jan Mun New York City, USA The Fairy Rings 2013
320 Nature-based solutions for cities
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Name Location Artwork Year
Zheng Bo Shanghai, China Plants Living in Shanghai 2013
SPURSE Claremont, USA Pitzer Multispecies Commons 2016
Mary Mattingly New York City, USA Swale 2016–2017
Lisa Myers and Sheila
Colla
Vancouver, Canada Finding Flowers 2017
Margaretha Haughwout
and Marisa Prefer
Hamilton/Brooklyn, USA Grafters XChange 2018
Jordan Weber Omaha, Nebraska Malcolm X Greenhouse 2018
T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss Vancouver, Canada x
aw
s shew
áy
New Growth
(新生林)
2019
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approaches to communicate about environmental issues in a significant way
(Nisbet 2009; Corner & Groves 2014). Most communication has traditionally
focused on providing facts, increasing literacy, or employing scare tactics
concerning impacts or risks (O’Neill & Nicholson-Cole 2009). These methods
are not always effective because environmental issues are complex and
may require interdisciplinary perspectives, embodied experiences, or culture
making for the public to resonate with key messages.
As artists expanded their practices in the 2000s, new knowledge of climate
risks began to inform their public-facing projects. For example, artist Eve
Mosher launched a public art project called HighWaterLine in 2006 to better
understand the impacts of a 100-year flood event and sea-level rise in New
York City (NYC) and the challenge of interpreting public scientific reports.
Utilizing participatory and performance-based practices, Mosher turned
a chalk dispenser commonly used for baseball diamonds into a drawing tool,
marking a continuous line along the waterfronts in Brooklyn and Manhattan
likely to be impacted by sea-level rise. The artist spent most weekends from
May through October 2007 walking and pouring nearly 70 miles of blue chalk
(Figure 14.1). As she navigated the streets of NYC, she catalyzed conver-
sations about the impacts of climate change and urban flooding, answering
questions from passersby and distributing small flyers with resources. Since
launching the project, the HighWaterLine model has been replicated in
Bristol, UK, and Miami, Boston, Philadelphia, and Honolulu, USA, bringing
together community-based organizations, non-governmental organizations,
and individuals.
As an artwork that blurs the lines between performance, public art, and
activism, there are several key issues to consider in how HighWaterLine
operates aesthetically and epistemologically to generate new knowledge,
awareness, and action. A key element is aesthetic experience generated by
the work, or the process of making sense of an environment and the objects
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Source: Left: photograph by Eve Mosher. Right: photograph by Jayme Gershen.
Figure 14.1 Left: Eve Mosher performing HighWaterLine in New York
City, 2014; right: Mosher performing HighWaterLine in
Miami
322 Nature-based solutions for cities
or situations within it (Brady 2002). Although commonly understood as the
philosophical study of beauty and taste, new aesthetic theories (e.g., environ-
mental aesthetics) emphasize the importance of multisensory immersion and
how this can motivate “becomings” and self-transformations (Strewlow et al.
2004). Elizabeth Grosz (2008) describes this as a disruption resulting in new
understandings and states of awareness, which may be uncertain or uncom-
fortable. In previous interviews, Mosher recounts the experience of walking
in a south Brooklyn neighborhood where she met several homeowners who
admitted they were denied flood insurance without an explanation of why
from the City (Nadir 2015). One afternoon, as Mosher was drawing her line in
front of their homes, the implications of sea-level rise became visible in a new
way. Mosher’s performance created a disruption in the everyday experience of
a frontline community potentially impacted by rising seas. The work unfolds
as a pedagogical process by producing a set of meanings through the viewer’s
participation, and highlights how communities may be excluded from con-
versations about climate and demonstrating that there is a need for additional
tools to aid public understanding (Atkinson 2012). Mosher’s work in this
sense points to crucial environmental and climate justice issues, providing an
example of how an artwork can offer opportunities for communities to better
understand the social-ecological implications of sea-level rise.
While planning her solo performance for other cities, Mosher ultimately
had to consider the ethical implications of entering into a community that was
not her own. She worked with the nonprofit ecoartspace to write an “Action
guide” so that communities globally could recreate her project (Watts 2014).
In Florida, Mosher worked with Resilient Miami to organize interactive
workshops and training on how individuals can conduct HighWaterLine
research in their communities. The organization also created a forum to review
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interventions and NBS proposals while envisioning alternatives for vulnerable
communities in the Miami metro area. Mosher also partnered with the non-
profit Creative Catalyst in the United Kingdom to perform HighWaterLine on
the River Avon in Bristol, England. Participants noted how the visceral act of
walking made sea-level rise something tangible and immediate.
Peruvian-born artist Lucia Monge’s Plantón Móvil (2010–), originally
launched in Lima, Peru, also takes a performative, public-facing approach to
address an issue central to NBS in cities: that of establishing and maintaining
public green space. As the second-largest desert city globally, Lima has been
challenged by the intertwined issues of water scarcity, poor air quality, and the
inequitable distribution of green space (Loris 2012). These challenges, along
with her interest in plant agency and urban green space, inspired Monge to
develop an ongoing public artwork that plays with the double meaning of the
Spanish word “plantón,” which refers both to a sapling and a peaceful protest.
For each iteration, Monge invites local community members to join her in a
“walking forest” performance (Monge 2018). Participants take to the streets
to walk, roll, or otherwise move through the city with plants to stress the
importance of vegetal life, urban nature, and public green space (Figure 14.2).
Each performance culminates in pre-arranged plantings where participants
contribute directly to building public green spaces using the plants involved
in the performance, ideally building ties that will contribute to their ongoing
maintenance and care. Monge explains the artwork is also about reimagining
the meaning of movement and migration, offering participants the opportunity
to experience “moving-with as a form of solidarity” across species (Monge
2019, p. 28). Here, Monge positions urban habitats as an important place to
cultivate interspecies awareness and multispecies kinship as she works to help
plants claim their place in the city.
Aesthetically, Monge’s project operates much like Mosher’s. It creates
a new point of reference or attunement to overlooked urban issues by engaging
a diverse public both as participants and onlookers. As a participant in the
performance, the collective act of walking with plants down a busy city street
invites a form of sensory immersion similar to HighWaterLine. As a witness,
passersby contend with an interruption to the everyday ritual of city life, and
the work creates an opportunity for shared experience around the possibility of
more abundant public green spaces. Although initially conceived as a singular
event, Plantón Móvil has spread to other cities, and each iteration has grown
more collaborative, interdisciplinary, and responsive to community needs
(Monge 2018). For example, in a 2019 edition in NYC, Monge partnered
with the Queens Museum, NYC Parks Department, John Bowne High School
Agriculture Department, and local immigrant communities to develop a per-
formance centered around plants as conduits of connection to cultural heritage
and public green space. Like Mosher’s HighWaterLine, Monge’s Plantón
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Source: Photo by Jorge Ochoa.
Figure 14.2 Lucia Monge’s Plantón Móvil (2011)
324 Nature-based solutions for cities
Móvil has been able to grow and adapt because it has a flexible formula that
can be applied to site-specific contexts through careful work with local stake-
holders, community members, and institutions, who contribute to the project’s
ability to address issues of equity and exclusion. Going beyond simply raising
awareness, both of these efforts cultivate social cohesion and build commu-
nity, which many researchers point to as crucial to the success of envisioning
and implementing effective NBS (Frantzeskaki et al. 2019).
ART AND REGENERATION: “REMEDIATING”
DAMAGED LANDSCAPES
Land degradation from industrialization, urbanization, agricultural practices,
and climate change impacts nearly a quarter of the Earth’s land area, affect-
ing 3.2 billion people, and contributing to biodiversity declines worldwide
(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2021). This is particularly criti-
cal in urban areas, which continue to impact health and well-being. In response
to these challenges, fields like restoration ecology, the practice of restoring
degraded ecosystems and habitats, have emerged (Hobbs & Cramer 2008).
The popularization of these practices has inspired many ecological artists to
explore concepts of remediation and regeneration (Matilsky 1992; Watts 2010;
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Ingram 2013). While many of these artworks are well intentioned, they also
raise questions about the artwork’s capacity to function as an effective NBS
and the scientific claims some artists make about their work.
One of the earliest examples is Alan Sonfist’s Time Landscape, com-
missioned by the NYC Department of Transportation in 1965 and 1978.
Acknowledging the loss of forested land in Manhattan, Sonfist proposed to
recreate a historic forest on a vacant lot in Greenwich Village. Over several
years, the artist worked with an architect and botanist to design a planting
regime that mimicked endemic forests. The artwork is not necessarily about
the experience of a native landscape, but rather the conceptual exercise of con-
sidering the time it takes for a forest to grow. While the artist and team initially
sought public involvement by recruiting volunteer stewards, the site today is
aesthetically unassuming, and could easily be mistaken for an informal green
space. Viewers are kept at a distance by a wrought-iron fence adorned with
a plaque explaining the project. While well intentioned, this separation can
inadvertently fracture city dwellers’ relationship with the site and urban nature
more generally. Additionally, it discounts the dynamism and complexity of
historical ecosystems and the crucial role of Indigenous human populations in
stewarding them and the need for ongoing care (Gould 1998; Ball et al. 2011;
Higgs 2012; Orion 2015; Armstrong et al. 2020).
In another well-known work, Revival Field (1991–ongoing), artist Mel
Chin collaborated with agronomist Rufus Chaney to study the effectiveness
of hyperaccumulating plants to remediate contaminated soil at the Pig’s Eye
Landfill in St. Paul, Minnesota (Boswell 2017; Loring 2020). Chin worked
with Chaney to create a land-based sculpture that doubled as an experiment
in phytoremediation, a form of bioremediation that uses hyperaccumulating
plants to absorb heavy metals like cadmium, zinc, and lead. Although rec-
ognized as a compelling example of an artist experimenting with a NBS, the
work itself was not able to significantly reduce rates of soil contamination
during the run of the experiment. Despite this, the documentation of the work
alludes to the site being partially restored, with some art critics and writers
mischaracterizing the project as a functional solution to contaminated sites
classified as a “superfund.”2 Chin’s work offers a cautionary tale, highlighting
a need to recognize both the limits of what art can and should do while also
creating space for further experimentation and interdisciplinary exchange that
was able to generate new research and understanding of the capacity of Thlaspi
caerulescens (alpine pennygrass) to absorb some contaminants. In so doing,
the work offers a salient example of artistic and scientific collaboration and
the ability of ecological art to amplify and circulate public understanding of
nature-based approaches like phytoremediation.
In a related vein, from 2008 to 2012, Chicago-based artist Francis Whitehead
launched the project SLOW Cleanup. Like Chin, Whitehead addressed soil
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Source: Courtesy of the artist.
Figure 14.3 “Phyto-scape” map developed for SLOW Cleanup by
Frances Whitehead showing the original 10 SLOW Cleanup
sites identified in Chicago, IL
326 Nature-based solutions for cities
contamination utilizing phytoremediation, applying experimental processes
to city-controlled abandoned gas station lots that had previously housed
underground storage tanks. Whitehead worked with the Chicago Department
of Environment to select 10 lots from 100 identified, revealing the spatial
distribution of racial and economic inequity on Chicago’s West and South
Sides, where a large majority of African American communities reside (Figure
14.3). Working with a soil scientist at the Cottage Grove Heights Laboratory
Garden for their first field trial, they identified ornamental plants with fibrous
root systems that would activate soil microbes to break down the petroleum
and its byproducts. Many of the plants chosen had not been tested previously,
generating new knowledge about the plants’ efficacy for phytoremediation.
The project also removed leftover pavement, and soils compacted for over 50
years were tilled with compost and new plantings. The other nine sites were
not addressed due to the incoming Mayor of Chicago in 2012, who eliminated
the Department of the Environment.
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As Whitehead’s project concluded, artist Jan Mun launched the Greenpoint
Bioremediation Project (2012) to work with local communities and develop
DIY bioremediation solutions for the Newtown Creek in NYC, a waterway
designated a superfund site in 2010 following decades of degradation and
petroleum leakage. Mun worked with the organization Newtown Creek
Alliance to develop a proposal for ExxonMobil, the entity responsible for
a majority of the leak, utilizing a bioremediation practice known as mycore-
mediation. In this process fungi consume and break down environmental pol-
lutants. Mun proposed a living sculpture called The Fairy Rings (Figure 14.4),
which mimicked the pattern of certain fungi and consisted of circular mounds
inoculated with varieties of oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus djamor complex and
Pleurotus osteatus). After an initial test, Mun began to work with Brooklyn
College’s Soil and Microbiology Lab to research whether the fungi could
break down long-chained toxins found in the creek’s groundwater. However,
like Chin’s work, Mun’s efforts could not extract a significant concentration of
contaminants from the site (Egendorf et al. 2021). The project was successful
in other ways, though, bringing together diverse communities across the city to
participate in hands-on workshops and training, producing educational mate-
rials, and highlighting the potential for bioremediation strategies to remediate
the creek.
In examining these works, Chin, Whitehead, and Mun’s efforts point to an
interesting tension that many ecological art projects present. On the one hand,
there is often an ambition to emulate ecological processes and offer practical
solutions, and on the other, a desire to experiment with aesthetic forms and
concepts. The friction that arises is critical for artists and collaborators to
consider in conceiving artworks that aim toward the remediation of damaged
landscapes. In many cases, these works gesture toward complex processes
that may require decades or centuries to be effective, yet also promote NBS
strategies that look beyond carbon-intensive and human-centered stewardship
practices. These artworks help bridge siloed disciplines, generating new
knowledge, and showcase the capacity of an art–science nexus that may prove
critical to realizing effective NBS in cities moving forward.
ENVISIONING POSITIVE FUTURES: NEW MODELS
AND PROTOTYPES FOR NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS
In his essay “Ecoaesthetics,” artist and commentator Rasheed Araeen (2009)
recalls the art manifestos of the early twentieth century that implore artists to
abandon the creation of objects for museums and instead develop radical ideas
to address emerging eco-social challenges. Araeen emphasizes the power
of the artistic imagination to confront the impacts of rapid urbanization and
climate change. As the projects in the previous section demonstrate, art can
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Source: Images provided and taken by the artist, Jan Mun.
Figure 14.4 Top: Illustration of an early prototype of artist Jan Mun’s
The Fairy Rings (2013); bottom: Jan Mun working with
technicians to install mycelial mounds at the Newtown Creek
site in Brooklyn, New York
328 Nature-based solutions for cities
accomplish more than raising awareness and help to realize new prototypes
and models for sustainable living and NBS for cities.
Beyond the bioremediation approaches explored, early works from eco-
logical artists like Liz Christy or Bonnie Ora Sherk showcase how artists
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began to experiment with new models for land stewardship, food production,
and community-based mutual aid (Kirchberg 2016). In San Francisco, Sherk
created a project called Crossroads Community (The Farm) (1974–1987),
which was sited underneath a freeway interchange at the intersection of several
low-income predominantly Black, brown, and immigrant neighborhoods with
low access to quality green space and fresh produce. Sherk’s project explored
decentralized food systems and communal models of living by co-creating
a space to grow food, keep farm animals, an art gallery, and school. Around
the same time in NYC, Christy founded the Green Guerrillas (1973) and
rallied actions to revitalize underutilized vacant land with “seed bombs.” The
efforts later inspired the creation of the Bowery Houston Community Farm
and Garden, the first and oldest community garden in NYC. These early
works recognized critical gaps in urban services that impacted marginalized
communities in ways that continue to exacerbate environmental inequities.
What’s more, they attended to the lack of flexibility in municipal planning and
decision making common in many urban areas. Aesthetically, the emphasis
of the work is not necessarily on creating a particular art object, but rather
the co-creation of dynamic models for new kinds of relations, practices, and
collective experience.
Over the past decade, this propensity to experiment with new models or
prototypes for NBS has continued. For example, Mary Mattingly’s Swale
project, a floating food forest built atop a barge that travels to public piers in
NYC (2016–), is a response to local ordinances that prevent communities from
growing or foraging for food on public lands. Staffed with youth from the New
York State Summer Youth Employment Program and facilitators from Youth
Ministries for Peace and Justice, the public is able to visit the barge, forage
publicly for food, and interact with local gardeners. In placing a food forest on
a floating vessel exempt from the ordinance, Mattingly offers a novel model
for food resiliency and an opportunity for New Yorkers to exchange practical
knowledge about soil and water quality, urban agriculture, and medicinal
plants. In 2017 the artwork docked at Concrete Plant Park in the Bronx, where
it helped inspire a new pilot project called the Bronx River Foodway, which
provided the first public foraging garden in NYC in a neighborhood deeply
impacted by environmental racism and food apartheid (Beurteaux 2019).
As both a conceptual artwork and a NBS, the project asks us to consider
the impacts of industrial farming and the right to grow food in public space.
Mattingly’s work also surfaces the procedural barriers that many governance
and planning models present for communities and highlights how artistic inter-
ventions can showcase alternative models of decision making and planning.
Yet Mattingly’s work in some respects is temporary. The barge, for instance,
was at one point decommissioned because of funding issues, problems with
finding a reliable docking location, and other challenges. Ecological artworks
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330 Nature-based solutions for cities
like this, while novel models that can inspire, promote, and even realize
NBS, may inadvertently emerge as short-sighted or exclusionary. In the case
of Swale, Mattingly’s project was effective in bringing together disparate
groups and created an opportunity to advocate for the Foodway initiative and
the pressing need to address food access. Yet, in many places worldwide,
long-term strategies co-produced by local communities are urgently needed to
address social and ecological challenges seriously.
Ecological artists must tread carefully in this sense. Artworks such as Swale
may not be enough to address systematic problems and realize NBS at suf-
ficient scale long term. The pressure placed on artists to create a compelling
rendering or beautiful object can prevent other impactful approaches, which
potentially limits the creation of new models or prototypes for NBS. Christy
and Sherk’s work is successful because the efforts originate in response to
the community’s needs and continue to be embedded in a particular place.
The projects also adapt, evolve, and sometimes end, emphasizing a need to
continually be in relation to the work, its intent, and capacity to be flexible and
responsive.
ARTISTS AS TRANSDISCIPLINARY BRIDGE
BUILDERS
In recent years, artists have increasingly worked collaboratively in interdisci-
plinary teams, making social engagement and participation an integral part of
their practice. Socially engaged art can be traced back to artistic movements
that arose during the cultural and social unrest of the 1960s (Sholette & Stimson
2005; Finkelpearl 2013), but also has precedents in early twentieth-century
avant-garde movements (Bourriaud 2002). In urban centers—from Paris to
Berlin to Moscow to Milan— artists began to respond to industrialization and
urbanization, imperial expansion and collapse, and the turmoil of the First
World War (Bishop 2012). This shift provoked artists to confront a range of
social and political issues and to reconceptualize the relationship between
artist, artwork, and audience to “channel art’s symbolic capital towards con-
structive social change” (Bishop 2012, p. 17).
In large part, these socially engaged works recognize the importance of
approaches and knowledge from multiple domains to address the complexity
of urban environmental issues. Over the past several decades, artists have
begun to work more closely with entities like urban planning offices, eco-
nomic development departments, community groups, and other stakeholders
to inform the visions for green infrastructure or development (Landry 2006;
Kovacs & Biggar 2018). In many respects these collaborations can help build
bridges between disparate disciplines, stakeholders, and diverse communities.
For example, artist Jordan Weber collaborated with the Malcolm X Memorial
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Foundation and members of the Shabazz Community Garden to create 4MX
Greenhouse (2018), a hub for environmental health inspired by the legacy and
teachings of Malcom X. Through a partnership with local communities and the
Memorial Foundation, the project addresses issues of environmental racism,
while providing access to the greenhouse’s harvest and educational programs
for and by the Black community in Omaha, Nebraska (Colón & LeFlore 2019).
In another example, artist Mark Brest van Kempen worked with the
Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation and the Metro/King Wastewater
Treatment Division from 2002 to 2009 to design and implement a public art
project that traced Ravenna Creek’s historic and present-day flow (Watts
2009). The work builds on a decades-long struggle by watershed groups to
redirect the naturally fed water source, which had been diverted to a sewer line
and water treatment plant in the 1950s. This shortsighted decision unneces-
sarily treated the creek water, and by 2002, the county began to develop plans
to return the creek to where it had initially flowed—primarily underground.
Brest van Kempen developed several components for the project, including
an outfall structure and viewing station where the creek enters the pipeline
underground from Ravenna Park. Along the sidewalk bordering the Creek
on 25th Avenue Northeast, he also marked a blue line to delineate the under-
ground pipe, including three daylighting vaults to show pedestrians the stream,
as well as embedded plaques with inset capsules of native seed (Figure 14.5).
Overall, the project created 650 feet of new streambed with naturally occurring
riparian and woodland habitat and resulted in a 20 percent increase in creek
flow, which may have significant impacts on the aquatic ecology downstream.
Aesthetically and conceptually, Brest van Kempen’s work does not aim to
romanticize the waterway but instead urges the viewer to consider the com-
plexity of urban infrastructure and our relation to sensitive waterways often
overlooked or displaced in cities. The effort is a salient example of an effective
NBS while also showcasing how artists can be a critical part of the planning,
implementation, and promotion. Brest van Kempen, for instance, worked
with the Ravenna Creek Alliance to help determine an appropriate compro-
mise between community members who were concerned the project would
remove a frequently used baseball field, attending City Council hearings and
discussions. Eventually, an agreement was forged that allowed the project to
move forward. Although it is difficult to discern whether Brest van Kempen’s
presence or input was the driving force behind the agreement, it offers an
example of how artists can be integral to a project’s public planning process
and realization.
Ecological artists and artworks can also be instrumental in supporting
community involvement in decision making and governance. A useful case
to consider is the curatorial work of Wu Mali in East Asia, who, from 2011
to 2012, developed the project A Cultural Action at the Plum Tree Creek,
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Figure 14.5 Mark Brest van Kempen, Ravenna Creek Drop, 2002–2009
332 Nature-based solutions for cities
situated in the Plum Tree Valley/Zhuwei area of New Taipei City in Taiwan
(Figure 14.6). Working with collaborators at Bamboo Curtain Studio, an artist
residency and performance venue, they focused on raising awareness of water
quality and pollution issues in the watershed through creek explorations and
oral stories told by local elders. The studio also organized community events
and exhibitions to engage local artists and professionals in addressing urban
sprawl and improving municipal management of public infrastructure, as well
as collaborations between elementary, middle school, and university students
and their teachers to encourage the exploration of better land care practices.
Following the project, the New Taipei City government began paying more
attention to the waterway and working on a new landscape plan. Before Wu’s
project, the city government had failed to disclose and discuss policy plans
with residents. As the project progressed, plans were sent to the artist through
Bamboo Curtain Studio to distribute in the community, creating a platform for
dialogue and exchange to strengthen community representation and cohesion
in a low-income, semi-agricultural region heavily impacted by urbanization
and population growth.
While both Brest Van Kempen and Wu’s work have successful aspects,
their efforts highlight the complexities of artists working across disciplines
and collaborating with those from other fields. Several scholars emphasize
a need for additional research and theoretical understanding of the impact
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Source: Courtesy of Wu Mali.
Figure 14.6 Aerial image of the Plum Tree Creek (2017)
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and process of artists working with planners and other stakeholders (Metzger
2011). In many cases, artist collaborations can be patchy, underfunded, and
hyperlocal, making it difficult to determine best practices. Additionally, the
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334 Nature-based solutions for cities
artist may be brought into a process only after key components have been
decided upon and can easily be coaxed into consensus or confront immovable
power dynamics. Yet, the artist also has the power to uncover hidden dimen-
sions of a particular challenge and can provoke necessary disorientation or
“making strange” that can motivate new perspectives and more earnest, open
dialogue within planning processes (Metzger 2011). However, these ways of
working can be easily co-opted and institutionalized, assuming that an artist or
artwork can be inserted into a place to solve a presumed “problem” without
careful consideration of the long-term needs of a community. In particular, cre-
ative place-making concepts are touted as effective revitalization efforts that
attempt to infuse art and cultural infrastructure into city planning (Markusen &
Gadwa 2010). Although these efforts can benefit some, practices such as place
making can be appropriated as a “neoliberal cultural development agenda”
or a “philanthropic route to gentrification” (Wilbur 2015, p. 97). Others like
Roberto Bedoya (2012) argue that arts-based place-making initiatives have
historically ignored issues of race, poverty, and the social dynamics of place,
instead privileging forms of urban revitalization “generated by dominant white
ideology” (as cited in Webb 2013, p. 37). These concerns reiterate what Grant
Kester (1995, p. 9) refers to as “aesthetic evangelism,” describing how artists
are increasingly positioned as “transhistorical shamans” sent to restore social
bonds with disenfranchised communities.
CONCLUSION: MOVING FORWARD
The examples described here provide a glimpse of the immense scope of work
by artists engaging with issues of ecology and the environment around the
globe. Artists are increasingly involved in co-visioning urban greening plans,
working closely with scientists and other stakeholders, co-creating participa-
tory works that foreground the importance of urban nature, and helping city
dwellers shift their worldviews, among other efforts (Potter 2009; Perovich
2018). Yet, despite the enormous potential, artists are still rarely included
meaningfully in the planning processes or decision making at the city or
regional level (Brigham 1993; Metzger 2011). Assumptions about what artists
can bring to the table and recurring resistance to realizing flexible and inclu-
sive decision-making processes are fundamental factors. As practitioners with
expertise, artists should be recognized as valuable contributors and integrated
into all research and planning stages.
Still, there are many limitations and barriers to utilizing art to advance NBS.
Artists, for example, are increasingly being asked to serve multiple roles, often
with little support or guidance on how to integrate considerations of equity
and inclusivity. Critic and scholar Grant Kester (2011) warns that the artist or
the institutions that support them can easily use their authority to exploit this
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arrangement, assuming a community needs to address these issues without first
consulting or collaborating directly with the communities. If left unexamined,
these attempts to restore the “social bond” may do more harm than good.
What’s more, artists are rarely financially supported in meaningful ways for
their contributions, thus influencing the potential impact of the artwork and set
of relations forged through a community-led project (BFAMFAPhD 2014).
Yet, hope persists. Artists across the globe increasingly recognize the
urgency of the climate crisis and integrate social-ecological concerns and
solutions into their work and practice. We can see evidence of this daily,
in demonstrations and protests, new public artworks and urban infrastruc-
tures, the planning and design of cities, and the emerging discourse of NBS.
Ecological art offers a unique capacity to help individuals and communities
envision positive futures, to see themselves as not only part of the problem but
also the solution, and perhaps what Lucy Lippard (1983, p. 9) would argue is
an embrace of the “sensuous dialectic between nature and culture.”
NOTES
1. Many scholars point to the emergence of Earth art in the 1960s and also land
art in the 1970s as a critical turning point in the history of ecological art and the
environmental art movement more broadly (Moyer and Harper 2012; Cheetham
2018). Rejecting the art object as separate from its environment, artists began
to develop large-scale interventions on outdoor sites. Rather than fill gallery
cubes with paintings or sculptures, works like Walter De Maria’s Lightning
Field (1977) in New Mexico, Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels (1973–1976), and
Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (1970), both in Utah, proposed a new relationship
between art and the land.
2. In the United States, “superfund” is the informal term used to describe sites
determined to be contaminated enough to qualify for special federal funding for
cleanup and remediation under the 1980 superfund act, also known formally as
the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act.
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... Herrmann-Pillath et al. 40 , as already anticipated by Mel Chin and Andreco artworks [41][42][43] , surpass the notion that constructing NBS in an artful way entails applying aesthetic principles in its design to raise awareness and promote dissemination. Developing the notion of "biotic artworlds" by Richard Prum's 44 and of "more-than human art" inspired by Dewey 45 , the authors perceive art as the key medium of creative agency of humans interacting with nature. ...
... The introduction of ecological art within the co-creation process can have a significant impact on urban planning, governance, and environmental awareness, by inspiring innovative urban development and influencing policy through the promotion of nature-based solutions 41 . The integration of art into urban green spaces within the framework of NBS presents a transformative approach. ...
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