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Figure 1. Wheatfield-A Confrontation. Source: http://www.agnesdenesstudio.com/works7_5_popup.html In the age of rapid ecological decline known as the Anthropocene — in which science tends to be upheld as the authoritative voice — what is the role of painting, printmaking, photography, illustration, sculpture, performance, music, installation art, multimedia work, and other creative forms? Can a sculpture promote public awareness of the vulnerability of ecosystems? Can a photograph instil empathy for animals, plants, fungi, or rivers? Can a painting galvanize a global environmental movement? Can a theatre performance enable a community to grieve the loss of a local wetland? (Hubbell — Ryan 2022: 149) These questions about nature and art are asked not only by Andrew Hubbell and John Ryan, but by the artists themselves, too. The answers are obviously in the affirmative, otherwise the kind of art and art groups that form the subject of this chapter would not exist. The artists and the creators of these artworks agree with the basic thesis of EH: contemporary environmental problems are not to be blamed simply on science progressing along a wrong track or on political indifference They have far more complex causes: the failure of culture. Although Aaron Allen as well as Hollis Taylor and Andrew Hurley spoke about this in relation to music. I believe the idea that they have such a great communicative and emotional power that they are capable of transforming, even radically, the recipients’ value system applies to all branches of art (Allen 2011; Taylor — Hurley 2015: 9). Indian writer Amitav Ghosh thinks and writes in a similar vein: the climate crisis is the failure of imagination; our imagination has to be shaped and kneaded by a new environmental literature so that we can see anthropogenic climate change properly (Ghosh 2016; cited Hubbell — Ryan 2022: 168).
