Forum: Eco-tistical Art

Abstract

Meaningful connections between disciplines and discourses, human values and environmental issues, and the role and relationship of art to ecological concerns describe Eco-tistical Art, a daylong series of events and conversations that took place during the 2005 Annual Conference of the College Art Association. The event was organized by author and environmentalist Linda Weintraub, who applied the principles of ecosystems to the format of the initiative. The typical convention format of discrete papers and panels was exchanged for the alchemy of multiple voices and positions with planned and fortuitous exchanges. Gathered here in Art Journal is a series of “field reports”—texts by respondents to artists' projects and presentations, background information on historical and contemporary environmental resources, and images of selected artists' projects. This collection of speculations and observations poses significant questions about the practices of art in a world poised, as the artist Beaumont suggests, between the vestiges of an industrial revolution and emergent ideas of sustainability. With Linda Weintraub and the other participants in the forum, we extend our thanks to Creative Capital for its generous support of this initiative.