Eco-Performance, Art, and Spatial Justice in the US (Routledge Environmental Humanities) - Softcover

Ryan, Courtney B.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1032067705 ISBN 13: 9781032067704

Publisher: Routledge, 2023

Synopsis

In Eco-Performance, Art, and Spatial Justice in the US, Courtney B. Ryan traces how urban artists in the US from the 1970s until today contend with environmental domestication and spatial injustice through performance.

In theater, art, film, and digital media, the artists featured in this book perform everyday, spatialized micro-acts to contest the mutual containment of urbanites and nonhuman nature. Whether it is plant artist Vaughn Bell going for a city stroll in her personal biosphere, photographer Naima Green photographing Black urbanites in lush New York City parks, guerrilla gardeners launching seed bombs into abandoned city lots, or a satirical tweeter parodying BP’s response to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the subjects in this book challenge deeply engrained Western directives to domesticate nonhuman nature. In examining how urban eco-artists perform alternate ecologies that celebrate the interconnectedness of marginalized human, vegetal, and aquatic life, Ryan suggests that small environmental performances can expose spatial injustice and increase spatial mobility.

Bringing a performance perspective to the environmental humanities, this interdisciplinary text offers readers stymied by the global climate crisis a way forward. It will appeal to a wide range of students and academics in performance, media studies, urban geography, and environmental studies.

About this title

About the Author

Courtney B. Ryan is a Lecturer in the Program in Writing and Critical Inquiry, University at Albany, SUNY, USA.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1032067705
• ISBN 13: 9781032067704
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 182