Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University College London : A - History of Art
The Politics of Sustainability: Art and Ecology
Context and contribution: This essay appeared in the catalogue for the exhibition that took place at the Barbican Art Gallery in London (June19-October 18, 2009). It was the first exhibition of its kind to look at the responses of key artists across different generations to climate change. In his contribution, Demos investigated the shifting relationship between contemporary art and ecology, considering several key intersections from the 1960s to the present moment, providing a genealogy of the development of art's engagement with environment and the political aspects of sustainability discourse.
Research imperatives and process: Demos’s catalogue essay critically explores various eco-art positions, including the art of reclamation, systems ecology and cybernetics, and political ecology. In one of the first serious attempts to think about ecology from an art historical perspective, Demos’s analysis is part of a larger research project on the politics of ecology.
