"The whole secret of the study of nature lies in learning how to use one's eyes."
- Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupine; from Nouvelles Lettres d'un Voyageur, 1869
Four concepts -- location, material, time and change -- are frequently addressed by ecological artists. These concepts can provide a valuable way for teachers and students to explore the many different meanings of ecological artworks. Teachers and students can also use these concepts to help examine ideas expressed in artworks across diverse subject areas such as anthropology, communications, science, music, social studies and the like and to make connections with everyday life-centered issues.
IssuesEcological issues are subject to change. They usually involve differences in people's perspectives of human and environmental conditions. Such issues are deeply connected to past and existing social and cultural contexts. Raymond Williams (1959) used dominant, residual, and emergent points of view as a way to understand how issues affect what we experience, how changing perspectives influence the formation of diverse life styles, and how contexts contribute to our personal perspectives. Many issues addressed by ecological artists are connected to specific community concerns and environmental conditions associated with location, material, time and change.
For the purpose of studying about art and ecology, a stream metaphor can be useful for understanding how perspectives on ecological issues are very dynamic. Perspectives change like a stream's current with many dimensions and directions. Typically in a society, one particular perspective is the strongest current or most dominant point of view. From the many perspectives that different people hold, no one current (perspective) ever quite dries up and its residual effect occasionally reappears. When the weather or conditions are suitable, a weaker or less powerful point of view might emerge and assume more force and prominence only to decline when conditions particularly conducive to its new-found strength no longer prevail.