Studying art history suited me because of its inherently interdisciplinary nature. I’m chronically curious. My undergraduate degrees were concerned with what I felt were fundamentals – political structures, global religions, Aotearoa history, conflict, how people interpret, what stories they express and why, how art and language function in these contexts, and to what end. In a tertiary setting the humanities are where you’re encouraged to loop it all in, or ‘spiral out’ from a point as a supervisor was fond of saying. True to form, it was in a comparative religion class where I was learning about state formation and political structures, international relations and colonisation. It was in an English lit paper where I witnessed poetic imagery be coopted into visual culture for propaganda. However, it was art history where I was investigating silver mines in Aotearoa, the lives of Edwardian craftswomen, anti-industrialism, and embodiment in sound art simultaneously.
Ecocritical art history was a homecoming. Broadly considered, ecocritical art history is an examination of the relationships between material culture and physical environments. The way I participate in it feels like leaping into the webs of ecologies both physical and immaterial. The keywords in that definition aren’t ‘physical environments’ to me, but ‘relationships between’. This foundation flexes and grows organically to fold in theoretical physics, postcolonial, Queer and intersectional feminist theories, Indigenous knowledges, Afrofuturist and ecofeminist imaginaries, curation, art criticism, multi-sensory art as empathy generators, and the more-than-human.
Critical studies seek to interrogate power dynamics, and, so far, this best fits the exploring I do as part of my curatorial and writing practices. The kind of work I will be sharing may take the form of academic reflections to loop you into my research interests, art or exhibition reviews, think pieces, essays, and close readings. I’ll link any other relevant published writing here too so it’s all in one place.
Welcome to you – arty reader, multi-interest being, bored human, friend, and collaborator.
meg doughty 