Art Writing and Coastal Change: Story-Telling in the Blue Economy

Abstract

By connecting artworks with their historical and environmental contexts, writing about art introduces new ways to understand the ecological histories of this changing world. Art writing is more than art history; it uses narrative nonfiction to tell stories of individual encounter and collective imagination. Situated amidst concerns for the threat of global climate change and alongside research into blue economies in South-east New South Wales (NSW), Australia, this article tells stories of coastal change recorded in artworks. We demonstrate how art writing can offer a bridge between concerns about human impacts on coastal ecosystems, and hopes for what we collectively imagine our future to be. The article offers art writing as an effective interdisciplinary research model for describing thought and felt relationships with our coastlines, past and future.