“Face the cow”: reconnecting to nature and increasing capacities for pro-environmental agency

Arts-based practices can support sustainability, combined with research that points out needs for intervention. We practiced environmental sensitivity and dialogic art with fifth-grade school pupils as part of an International Socially Engaged Art Symposium (ISEAS2019). Using arts-based action research methodology, our case study focused on the opportunities of arts-based environmental education in advancing the management of meadows and wood-pastures. We explored nature connectedness and pro-environmental mindsets and behaviors among the pupils and artists/researchers. The artistic results encompassed the dialogic interactions of the intervention, exhibited artworks, and audiovisual documentation. Using the leverage points framework, we detected key levers in conservation of meadows and wood-pastures, based on literature and the current study through a content analysis on the collected reflective materials. The participants emphasized engaging with agricultural nature in multiple ways, through doing and feeling. Arts-based practices allowed participants to recognize their corporality and develop an experiental, expressive, and informed connection with nature. Based on discussions on the general ideologies and values underlying the intervention, we conclude that promoting a stewardship philosophy towards agricultural nature would benefit its conservation. Arts-based environmental education has great potential in advancing such transition, if the multidimensionality of the interaction between people and nature is acknowledged.

以艺术为基础的实践可助力可持续发展，相关研究亦指明了干预行动的必要性。作为2019年国际社会参与艺术研讨会（International Socially Engaged Art Symposium, ISEAS2019）的组成部分，我们与五年级小学生共同开展了环境敏感性培养与对话式艺术（dialogic art）实践。本研究采用基于艺术的行动研究（action research）方法论，以案例研究形式探讨了以艺术为基础的环境教育在推进草地（meadows）与疏林牧场（wood-pastures）管理方面的应用潜力。我们针对小学生与艺术家/研究者群体，探究了其自然联结感（nature connectedness）、亲环境心态与行为表现。本次实践的艺术成果涵盖干预过程中的对话互动、展出艺术作品以及视听纪实资料。基于现有文献与本研究数据，我们通过对收集到的反思性材料开展内容分析，借助杠杆点（leverage points）框架识别出了草地与疏林牧场保护的关键干预杠杆。参与人员强调，应通过实践与感知的多重路径，建立与农业型自然的联结。以艺术为基础的实践帮助参与者意识到自身的肉身性，并构建起兼具体验性、表达性与认知性的自然联结。基于对本次干预行动背后的核心意识形态与价值理念的探讨，我们得出结论：推广面向农业型自然的管护理念，将对其保护工作大有裨益。若能正视人与自然互动的多维属性，以艺术为基础的环境教育在推进此类转型方面拥有巨大潜力。