Art for the Anthropocene -
SSHEAN + Tiina Kukkonen
Change with the Earth in Mind
In 2023, SSHEAN researchers (Heather McGregor and Sara Karn), artist and SSHEAN graduate student Micah Flavin, and artist-researcher-educator Tiina Kukkonen collaborated to develop an exhibit entitled Change with the Earth in Mind.
The results of our artification initiative were shown in October 2023 at the Studio Gallery of the Faculty of Education, Queen’s University. Together, we worked over the preceeding months to to envision how visual artworks and artmaking might contribute to climate change education research, pedagogy, and knowledge translation. Here we share glimpses of our research and art processes and outcomes.
This exhibition was made possible through funding provided by the Queen’s University Faculty of Education (Office of the Dean – Research and Strategic Initiatives and the Community Initiatives Fund) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
How do you love the Earth and how does the Earth love you?
What makes you feel ready to change with the Earth in mind?
As you move into an uncertain future, what will you bring with you from the past?
To engage teacher candidates in responding to the first question, Tiina taught workshops in Bachelor of Education classes at Queen’s, where participants were invited to create their own clay listening device, in order to better listen to the voice of the Earth.
The clay cylinders were created using only natural materials, imprinted with pieces of nature, and not fired.
The second question was taken up through a collaborative public mural placed on “Student Street” of the Queen’s University Faculty of Education. A plain cotton sheet with fabric markers were provided alongside the prompt, What makes you feel ready to change with the Earth in mind.
The mural was analyzed and embroidered according to the images and words that stood out as meaningful to the researchers.
Then, it was dyed using indigo (a natural dye).
Special thanks to artist Bethany Garner for her expertise and materials during the indigo dyeing process, and Soili Kukkonen for donating fabric and volunteering many hours to sewing the backing to the mural.
Tiina’s felted piece, Ignis Fatuus, set the context for the third question, posed as an interactive mixed-media element of the final exhibit. The future, in the face of climate change, is uncertain, but we can draw from our individual and collective pasts to find ways of navigating this uncertainty—as humans have always done. Thus, this section of the installation encouraged audiences to consider the knowledge, memories, relationships, ceremonies, and hopes that can help carry and guide us, as individuals and communities, into an uncertain future.
Tiina Kukkonen
Ignis Fatuus (2023)
Felted wool
“An ignis fatuus is a swamp light, a wisp of phosphorescent gas that misguides travelers at night. They think it is the light of a human habitation. They head toward it. All they find is more wilderness . . . There is the possibility of following an ignis fatuus for a little while without having an inflated sense of the promise it holds out of rescue. There are patterns that can sustain you, even though they do not last forever, even though they do not mark up the world as known once and for all—even though they are not, strictly speaking, true.”
Excerpt from: Ogden, E. (2022). On not knowing: How to love and other essays. University of Chicago Press.
Tiina Kukkonen
Swamp of Promise (2023)
Clay, Milk Paint, Wool felt
This swamp installation was created using the leftover clay from the listening device workshop. The clay pieces were then painted using an all-natural and environmentally friendly milk paint. The blue felt is made from natural wool fibres.
The words embroidered on the felt petals are hope, ceremony, memory, relationship, and knowledge.
The clay listening devices, created by 53 B.Ed. teacher candidates enrolled in the Summer 2023 Environmental Education course, were displayed along with the green sticky-note titles the artists left with their pieces. They were displayed on the ground so that attendees could touch and play with them, encouraging active and deep listening with, to, and for the Earth.
An eco-drone (soundscape), created by graduate student and artist Micah Flavin, accompanied the listening devices. Sounds such as wind, fire, birds, and voices speaking of hope and change, could be generated by attendees using the sampler.
In winter 2024 the clay listening devices were returned to the Earth in a display outside the Faculty of Education. As they are un-fired natural materials, we aim to observe as they respond to the elements.
This website features research supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
