Sam Bowyer talks to Erika Yarrow about culture, climate change and the new on-line museum that is opening up access to environmental art.

I grew up in the USA and Venezuela, in a family that enjoyed travel, hiking and the outdoors, and was fortunate to spend time in a wide range of ecosystems. My understanding of architecture, prosperity, food and traditional art is rooted in this early exposure and the often jarring
contrasts that emerged.  I believe that my work, both as an artist (creating habitat sculpture for years as part of a collaborative group called Meadowsweet Dairy) and now with greenmuseum.org, stems from an appreciation for biological and cultural diversity and our shared responsibility to create a culture that reflects our values.

Culture and the environment go hand-in-hand

I think everything we do as people is connected ultimately with our context, our environment. Art is a powerful tool for communicating complex ideas and emotions.  It interconnects the ideas, history and aesthetics that shape our culture.  Environmental issues are very often
addressed from a science and engineering perspective, while art has focused traditionally on ideas and aesthetics.  One of the aspects of contemporary eco-art that interests me most is the notion that 'art has a job to do'. 

Once you look at trying to achieve some kind of environmental benefit as one of your aesthetic goals as an artist, it opens up new opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration.  By working with scientists, architects and resource managers, artists can
bring beauty and cultural resonance to practical environmental stewardship issues.  These approaches can enhance the effectiveness of practical work (such as water treatment or wildlife management) by engaging community interest, educating the public and enhancing the
beauty of a site.

Before, we had the notion as a society that art was a commodity to be traded and sold. It was part of what most people did to make their world beautiful and honour their connection to history and the Earth.  People carved and decorated their canoes, held ceremonies and sang songs which connected them to the seasons and cycles of nature.  Art and environment were intimately intertwined.  I think that any science of sustainability needs a cultural component or it will not succeed, and vice versa.
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The greenmuseum.org
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Our mission is to advance creative efforts that improve our relationship with the natural world.  To that end, we seek to raise the visibility of projects (many of them large- scale and site-specific) that address ecological issues and might not otherwise be seen in conventional museums or art galleries. 

A sculpture woven out of green willow branches designed for an eroded river bank, will eventually sprout and become a willow thicket, stabilizing the soil and improving water quality.  Such a project might be impossible to move to a museum or sell in a gallery.  By featuring such work through documentation, links, essays and event listings online, greenmuseum.org can help raise
people's awareness about what art can do. 

We do not have a physical museum. Instead, we have a website and active consulting and outreach. We feel the more people can see what is possible, the more likely that will inspire the creation of new work to serve our communities and ecosystems.  Our museum is free to visit and open 24 hours-a-day to anyone with internet access.  This is one of the ways greenmuseum.org can support the growth and evolution of environmental art.

Defining eco-art
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As a growing art movement, eco-art is really defining itself and greenmuseum.org is doing its best to give people a sense of what we see happening.  The many terms used to describe this work and the countless ways art and nature overlap, is part of a shared and increasingly global dialogue.  

Environmental art has grown so much in recent years. It was a struggle to find projects in the 1990s when we began our research. Now we receive many more inquiries than we could possibly include.  We have our own internal curatorial process but also invite selected experts to create online exhibitions, exploring issues such as 'Performance and the Environment' or 'Moisture retention sculpture in the Mojave Desert'.  As a non-profit organisation we work within the limits of our budget and do our best to share as much of this work with the world as we can.  After almost six years of operation, I feel we are just scratching the surface of what is being done and the growth in interest in this work shows no sign of letting up. This is a tremendously exciting cultural shift. 

Making the connections
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There is probably not a field of study that does not relate back to the environment and art is no exception.  Art reflects our own understanding of who we are and what is important to us.  Human history  goes through phases, where people see themselves as more-or-less interconnected with the world around them.  Consider the vast intimacy implied by a rain dance or the industrial objectification and anonymity of Pop Art.  Even in the field of environmental art there is tremendous variation in the formal aesthetic of Andy Goldsworthy's colourful leaf arrangements compared to the engaged participation of a group like PLATFORM, that combines educational city tours, public performances and gallery installations. I think this variety is important and helps engage different people in different ways.  Art history is only a small part of what is happening culturally (or artistically) at any one time.  I can imagine a time when art might simply be part of what everyone does and
environmental concerns become so central to our way of life that the terms dissolve. 

A positive force for global communication?
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I do believe that challenges and hardship can help us grow.  Personally, I prefer to address things before they become a problem. But in the case of global climate change, the sense of self required is on a scale most people are not used to thinking about.  You have to believe that your
personal consumption really does affect something as large as the entire planet.  The Earth is communicating and interacting with us and everything else all the time. Just think of the role of oxygen, gravity and magnetism on bird migration and how that affects what we might see out the window.  We are connected to the entire galaxy for that matter, but we seldom think about it. As humans dominate the globe, our overall share of that dialogue (conceptual, chemical, energetic) increases along with our impact. Climate change, pollution, loss of biodiversity, global
pandemics, war and countless other issues reflect this. Cultural responses, government policy, public awareness and our technological capacity to share, measure and understand these impacts are all part of this emerging complexity.  The less impact we have, the less we will need to worry about communicating about it.  Right now we have a serious communication deficit.

Engendering collective responsibility

Art is perhaps one of the most integrative forms of human communication.  It can reach us on physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual levels.  It can function both as an object in the environment and as an abstraction.  As our world becomes more obviously interdependent, our personal habits, culture and public policy will need to reflect that.  New forms of art are emerging that engage actively communities, promote interdisciplinary collaboration and function as catalysts for social change. Art is becoming less about nouns (a statue you can place anywhere) and more about verbs (creating habitat, controlling erosion, raising awareness, promoting dialogue) which support shared goals and outcomes. 

Art parks that clean-up polluted water in China and Pennsylvania coal country, for example, can
enhance local conditions, empower residents and create opportunities for dialogue and events which celebrate our connections to the natural world.  I know these might sound like lofty abstractions but there are many examples on greenmuseum.org to look at. We have a resource
called the 'TOOLBOX for Communities' with case
studies, useful resources and testimonials, written by city park and resource managers, citing the effectiveness of these approaches.

While art and artists are engaging increasingly communities as well as ecosystems, to heal and interconnect, so are other organisations. CIWEM's interest in environmental art is an important example of this interdisciplinary shift. Green, socially-responsible businesses too
are giving back increasingly to local communities and even supporting environmental art projects, while networked museums, like greenmuseum.org, exist thanks to the financial support and information from our visitors.  Our capacity to help build and empower the systems and networks which sustain us may depend on whether we can make what's good for us interesting and beautiful and meaningful enough.  If we support what we value, then we might just stand a chance.