Growing Affinity
The Reparative Sublime: Embodied Ecological Thinking
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Elise Richman
The history of landscape painting envisions ways of valuing and devaluing the natural world. The aesthetic category of the sublime introduced a modern conceptualization of nature to this genre as an inaccessible and awe inspiring other. The romantic sublime's tropes have informed ideas of wilderness, fueled unfettered development and notions of "progress," and animated manifest destiny. "The Reparative Sublime: Embodied Ecological Thinking" proposes an ecologically minded relationship to the romantic sublime's affective valences of wonder and awe. Rather than considering these affective orientations as distantiating and bewildering, the reparative sublime envisions and embodies connective and entangled relationships to the natural world. This paper examines select, historic landscape paintings that represent the romantic sublime ethos while bearing witness to environmental concerns. These works' intimation of care through concern will provide historic context for a proposed aesthetic subcategory, the reparative sublime. Contemporary thinkers such as Donna Haraway, Karen Barad and Isabella Stengers inform consideration of frameworks for the reparative sublime and work by contemporary visual artists and pigment experts, including Heidi Gustafson, John Sabraw, and the Wāhine Māori art collective demonstrate this aesthetic through their work and research.
Depicting the Spirit of el Levantamiento: The Politics of Public Art in Cherán, Mexico
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Anthony Wright
In 2011, the Indigenous Purépechan people of Cherán, Mexico began building a social and political movement in response to the destruction of the forest surrounding their community, which was being carried out by cartels in collusion with corrupt municipal officials. Working with a group of Indigenous lawyers, the town successfully fought for the right to autonomous governance, which was secured in 2015. Since then, activists in Cherán have rebuilt their local government and instilled a new spirit of civic participation in the town. In addition to many other forms of action, art making is major component of this work, and an intergenerational collective of local artists has formed in attempts to create and maintain hospitable spaces for artistic learning and collaboration. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with teen and young adult artists in Cherán, I describe how they envision the role of the arts in the social and political life of their community. I show that they attribute the arts with the power to unite the community and preserve and carry forward Purépechan culture. At the same time, there are tensions within the community surrounding the content of public art and who should produce it. While some artists have sought to recuperate pre-colonial aspects of Purepéchan cosmology in their public artworks, this at times has generated controversy among community members who identify as Catholic.
Between Natural Form and Negative Space: Hospitality in Japanese Gardens
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Camelia Nakagawara
Japanese gardens, which have long left the confines of the Japanese archipelago and have become a beloved presence in American urban culture, are often characterized using terms such as “peaceful,” “serene” or “tranquil.” What is the true source of such characterizations? What is the difference between a forest and a Japanese garden in that respect? Is it the absence of auditory noise or rather, the absence of visual noise that generates psychological space, constituting the subtle but irresistible hospitality of Japanese gardens? By analyzing design patterns and visual features of representative gardens, this paper shows how Japanese garden art creates a hospitable environment predicated on the selection, reduction and stylization of natural forms that allow the viewer to creatively engage with the space offered for perception. In this world, scales are controlled, the types of shapes and materials are reduced through disciplined artistic choice, and yet the result is liberating for the viewer. Furthermore, a fundamental principle of Japanese gardens, asymmetry, acts as a catalyst in the psychological chemistry between the garden space and the visitor, sometimes obstructing the view, stimulating curiosity and enticing further exploration. By showing these processes at work, this study offers a better understanding of a popular immersive art form --which a Japanese garden can be considered to be -- and the deep sources of its perceived hospitality.
