Expanding Environmental Awareness in Education Through the Arts

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

   PDF

2. Theoretical Perspectives

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. Towards a Changed View on Crafts and Materiality: An Introduction

      • Camilla Groth, Biljana C. Fredriksen

      Pages 3-23

   3. Everyday Animisms

      • Lisa Meaney

      Pages 25-40

   4. Kinship Assemblages: Human and Non-Human Dialogues Through Materiality

      • Miranda Smitheram, Frances Joseph

      Pages 41-53

   5. Three Contemporary Artists’ Collaborative Crafting with Non-human Living Organisms

      • Jing Yang

      Pages 55-69

3. Human Crafting

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 71-71

      PDF

   2. Slow Spun: Connecting to Ancestors, Fibre-Producers, Fellow Humans and the Land Through Handcrafting of Wool and Alpaca Fibre

      • Lorrie Miller, Biljana C. Fredriksen

      Pages 73-92

   3. Entangling with Materials: Crafting as a Way of Repairing Our Relationship with the Environment

      • Bilge Merve Aktaş

      Pages 93-108

   4. Crafting in Dialogue with the Material Environment

      • Maarit Mäkelä

      Pages 109-124Open Access

4. More-than-Human Crafting

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 125-125

      PDF

   2. Managing Conflicting Desires in a Garden Plant: Crafting with a Variegated Daylily

      • Tina Westerlund, Katarina Saltzman

      Pages 127-139

   3. Crafting Stories with Birds’ Crafting: An Eco-Ethical Mixed Methodology

      • Venke Aure, Biljana C. Fredriksen

      Pages 141-156

   4. Insectography: A Choreographic Crafting of Insects and Us

      • Tone Pernille Østern, Rose Martin, Helena Bichão, Arnhild Staal Pettersen

      Pages 157-170

   5. Desire Lines as Artographic Crafting: Learning-With Wildlife in Rural Canadian Landscapes

      • Anita Sinner, Rita L. Irwin

      Pages 171-181

5. Crafting-with Other-than-Human

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 183-183

      PDF

   2. Ecological Awareness with and Through Human and More-Than-Human Efforts of Embracing a Former Gravel Pit

      • Helene Illeris

      Pages 185-197

   3. The Many Lives of a Tree: Speculative Fabulation on Environmental Reshaping Processes and Their Discursive Symptoms

      • Ana Sarvanović, Milica Ivić

      Pages 199-212

   4. Soil Laboratory: Crafting Experiments in an Exhibition Setting

      • Riikka Latva-Somppi

      Pages 213-229Open Access

   5. Nurture-By-Nature in Affordance-Need Context

      • Jun Hu

      Pages 231-240

This book presents diverse processes of crafting that bring humans, more than-humans and the environment closer to one another and, by doing so, addresses personal and educational developments towards ecological awareness. It discusses the human-material relationship, introduces posthuman theoretical entry points and reflects on the implementation of such theoretical perspectives in education. The practical examples of crafting-with the environment, the material practices and reflections posed in the book, provide insights into possible ways of levelling out human and material hierarchies. 

The chapters of this book give examples of artists' and crafts people's processes of thinking through materials and with materials, but also their reflections on how more-than-humans (animals and plants) craft from available materials, and how the environment and landscapes re-craft themselves through tedious processes of transformation. These case examples are founded on theauthors' own experiences with phenomena they are trying to understand and critically explore.


This book is of interest to professional creative practitioners, art and craft educators, art teacher educators or researchers in the field of creative practices. It has power to inspire rethinking of present educational practices, to ignite critical reflections about materials and more-than humans, and, hopefully, motivate transformations toward more ecologically sustainable ways of life. 


Chapters "Crafting in Dialogue with the Material Environment" and "Soil Laboratory: Crafting Experiments in an Exhibition Setting" are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.se via link.springer.com.

• Sustainable teaching practices in the arts
• Craft Education and Sustainability
• More-than-human crafting
• Ecological Ethics
• Becoming ecological
• Environmental awareness in arts education
• Crafting the future
• Ecological education in the arts
• Teaching arts and crafts sustainably
• Sustainable craft pedagogy
• Sustainable craft education
• Craft education for the future
• Post-humanism in education

“This is a fascinating account of an emerging philosophy of art, in which all artists are seen to be interacting with some aspect of nature. In the interaction the two change each other. The artist learns about changes already occurring in the environment and how they can be researched and used in her/his practice. The many fascinating examples will be of interest to any artist and especially to art and craft teachers and their students, whether in schools or elsewhere, as well as to researchers in art education. 
The book is likely to appeal to both environmentalists and artists, and to researchers and students of both. Some of the many aspects of nature discussed are shearing sheep and alpaca to card and spin their wool, keeping bees, following animal trails, making pottery from various local soils, exploring an abandoned gravel pit. I highly recommend its use by artists, researchers and teachers of art and craft everywhere.” — Professor Michael Parsons, the University of Illinois, Champaign

• Department of Visual and Performing Arts Education, University of South-Eastern Norway, Horten, Norway

  Biljana C. Fredriksen

• Department of Visual and Performing Arts Education, University of South-Eastern Norway, Notodden, Norway

  Camilla Groth

Biljana C. Fredriksen is a professor of Art & Craft education and teacher educator at early childhood teacher programs at University of South-Eastern Norway. During her 25 years long teaching practice, she has conducted a number of research projects in collaboration with her students, young children,  and early childhood practitioners. Her most recent studies address embodied, experiential and aesthetic entanglements among more-than-humans. Striving for practice based on an idea of evolutionary aesthetics, Fredriksen’s research deals with ecologically holistic understanding of learning where she poses questions about how esthetic approaches to learning can contribute to increased ecological awareness in students of all ages. She is leading the research group Learning and Teaching for Sustainability (LETS), and she is her university’s representative in the International Partner Network of the UNESCO Chair on Education for Sustainable Lifestyles. Fredriksen’s most recent publications are based on her co-existence with horses and alpacas, and her own process of becoming ecological through close encounters with more-than-human inhabitants of their rural farm landscapes.  

Camilla Groth is a craft practitioner, researcher and teacher with a Master from Royal College of Art, London and a Doctor of Arts degree from Aalto University, Helsinki. She has a background in ceramic crafts and many years’ experience of studying, teaching and working in the field of art, design and craft, in Europe and Japan. Her creative work has been exhibited in Tokyo, London, Paris, New York and Helsinki and has been acquired by the Finnish state art commission. Her research interests concern experiential knowledge and materiality. Groth has studied embodied making and learning in craft practice and in her recent work also in interdisciplinary collaboration. She has developed an interdisciplinary educational platform for material thinking and learning that encourages reflection on the student’s relationship with materials.  In her role as associate professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway, Groth is leading the research group Embodied Making and Learning, in which the aim is to develop knowledge related to embodied making practices, its role for both individuals and the society and the learning that goes on in these human-material interactions.

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