Careful Prospecting: Intersections of Art, Technoscience and Ecological Health

摘要

Mounting ecological health concerns—for example climate change, pollution, and loss of biodiversity—occasion the need for innovative methods and interdisciplinary knowledge politics. Through empirical research and artistic mediations I demonstrate that practices of care are vital for reimagining ecological health. I contend that care, when materialised and performed through artworks, can engage with the complex question of how to bring about change. Within this exegesis, I adopt a case study approach to investigate three different artists’ practices, including Natalie Jeremijenko’s, Britta Riley’s and my own. Jeremijenko’s The Environmental Health Clinic stages public art experiments that reframe environmental concerns through a clinical health lens. Riley’s Windowfarms is an indoor garden art project that connects online communities who share sustainable designs. In the third case study, Black-Noise and Carbon Valley, I discuss artwork developed in response to the ecological health impacts of open cut coal mining in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales, Australia.*From an analysis of the three case studies I make a distinctive contribution by developing an ethos of “careful prospecting”. Careful prospecting, I argue, can be thought of as a means of learning how to care: it is a cosmopolitical practice that is about carefully tending to, tuning into, or becoming curious about ways in which healthy ecologies are produced. I offer careful prospecting as both a methodological and theoretical device for understanding and embodying practices of care in relation to ecological health concerns. Three modalities of careful prospecting were identified: experimenting, curating and listening. Each of these modalities, contributes to a sense of curiosity and obligation. Careful prospecting is about learning to be affected and mobilsing art as a means of engaging with ecological health crises. * The artwork is presented alongside this exegesis in the form of documentation of an installation, Black-Noise, and a video artwork, Carbon Valley. To view these works please visit: www.carefulprospects.com.