Towards a Sympoietic Art Practice with Plants L M
TOWARDS A SYMPOIETIC ART PRACTICE WITH PLANTS L M CHARLSTON PhD 2019 1 Towards a Sympoietic Art Practice with Plants LINDA MARY CHARLSTON A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Manchester Metropolitan University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Manchester School of Art Research Centre Faculty of Arts and Humanities Manchester Metropolitan University 2019 2 Towards a Sympoietic Art Practice with Plants ABSTRACT At a time of crisis in human relationships with the natural world, this practice-as-research project comprises selected artworks and a written thesis investigating co-creativity with plants. The openly exploratory and speculative research scrutinises changes to plant-artist relationality as I develop a sympoietic art practice with plants, conceived as ethically accountable, co-creative ‘making-with’ plants, inspired by Haraway’s 'naturecultures' (2016). Sympoietic practice engages affirmatively with posthuman ethics of non-exploitative, egalitarian and ecologically situated practice, re-conceptualises plant-artist relations and makes way for accepting plants as agentially-active, co-expressive partners (Bennett, 2010, Marder, 2013). Manifestations of sympoietic art practice explored through co-creative processes of growing, making and walking with-plants contribute to the variegated nature of practice-as-research by reaching out in multiple directions to connect feminist and posthumanist theories (Barad, 2007, Braidotti, 2013, Alaimo, 2016) with artistic research (Schwab, 2018), poetic encounters, science and everyday life. In response to sympoietic concerns, temporary assemblages of interconnected events add participation, performativity and ecological awareness to the poetry and production of the artist-book. Sympoietic art processes have revealed multiple hindrances to my relationship with plants despite artistic closeness.
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