Three book chapters: Bilge Merve Aktas, Maarit Mäkelä, & Riikka Latva-Somppi — Expanding Environmental Awareness in Education Through the Arts: Crafting-with the Environment (Springer)

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 sustainability. 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, including contributions by Empirica members Bilge Merve Aktas, Maarit Mäkelä and Riikka Latva-Somppi, give examples of artists’ and craftspeople’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 the authors’ own experiences with phenomena they are trying to understand and critically explore.

Expanding Environmental Awareness in Education Through the Arts: Crafting-with the Environment 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. The book is edited by Biljana C. Fredriksen and Empirica Alumna Camilla Groth.

Contributions:

• Aktaş, B.M. (2022). Entangling with Materials: Crafting as a Way of Repairing Our Relationship with the Environment. In: Fredriksen, B.C., Groth, C. (eds) Expanding Environmental Awareness in Education Through the Arts. Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education, vol 33. Springer, Singapore.
• Mäkelä, M. (2022). Crafting in Dialogue with the Material Environment. In: Fredriksen, B.C., Groth, C. (eds) Expanding Environmental Awareness in Education Through the Arts. Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education, vol 33. Springer, Singapore.
• Latva-Somppi, R. (2022). Soil Laboratory: Crafting Experiments in an Exhibition Setting. In: Fredriksen, B.C., Groth, C. (eds) Expanding Environmental Awareness in Education Through the Arts. Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education, vol 33. Springer, Singapore.