Ecology and Environment Interest Group (EEIG) Column: Spring 2023

Materiality and Sustainability in Art Education

For decades, environmental artists have used discarded objects or found materials in their works to make statements about materiality, consumption, and waste. Now these approaches have become fairly commonplace, with many large public sculptures composed of repurposed materials and step-by-step books published on the topic (e.g., Crull, 2022). In the field of art education, numerous educators (e.g., Eckhoff & Spearman, 2009; Hasio & Crane, 2014)—including myself (Bertling, 2015)—have described curricula that engage students in repurposing materials. While some challenges associated with these practices arose in my own former middle school teaching, I recently realized, through conversations with other art-teacher educators, the use of reclaimed materials in art education is a fairly contentious topic. In this column, Jody Boyer and I identify some critiques and offer some thoughts and suggestions.

Critiques of art processes involving repurposed materials can be rooted in a variety of concerns related to practical challenges, artistic rigor, social equity, and sustainability concerns. From a more anthropocentric perspective, art educators have expressed concerns about material storage as these materials can clutter, collect dust, and decompose in classrooms; the need for all students to experience high-quality, traditional “art materials”; and the lack of conceptual complexity associated with these approaches, given that simple representational works tend to dominate this genre (e.g., whales made from plastic water bottles). However, for the purposes of this column, we will engage with the critiques that arise more from ecocentric perspectives.

The predominant ecocentric critiques we have encountered relate to the actual sustainability and impact of such works. When assembling found objects, K–12 students tend to want to use non-reclaimed materials to adhere the materials, support the works, or decorate the surfaces. Adhesives (e.g., hot glue, superglue, and tape), metal armatures, manufactured connective materials (e.g., wire), and non-water-soluble paints (e.g., spray paint) tend to be nonbiodegradable, nonrenewable, and unrecyclable. As such, these materials tend to be less ecologically sustainable than more basic art supplies like drawing paper and colored pencils. This same phenomenon can manifest in contemporary art, for instance, when large metal armatures support plastic-bag or plastic-water-bottle sculptures.

Thus, an interrelated critique surrounds ecosocial impact. If such works are ecologically harmful in their materiality, do they hold ecosocial value? Can unsustainability be overlooked because the works otherwise model alternative modes of living and inspire ecosocial dialogues? Or do they feel too performative, by espousing important ideas about sustainability without being willing to commit fully to those principles themselves, similar to corporate greenwashing?

Rather than thinking in terms of stark binaries, like (good) sustainable and (bad) unsustainable artistic practices, which could discourage smaller steps toward sustainability in studio art practices and art education that, when implemented broadly, could result in sizeable conservation, we prefer to think of sustainable material usage in terms of a continuum or tiers. Linda Weintraub (2018) offered a “good/better/best” (p. 20) tiered model for eco materialism in art. For instance, Weintraub distinguished between art practices that temporarily divert materials from landfills and those that permanently redirect them. While some artists utilize discarded materials and then eventually dispose of the works so they proceed to the landfill as they were originally intended (a “good” practice in not creating new “waste”), other artists dismantle the works and recycle the individual components (a “better” practice in recycling existing “waste”). In such cases, a “best” practice might represent artists’ preserving their works’ materials and further repurposing them (Weintraub, 2018).

In the near future, we expect environmental impact will become a key criterion used to assess the merit of artworks—equal to, or perhaps more important than, other commonly accepted criteria like conceptual engagement or technical expertise. We encourage art educators to begin to integrate this ethical, material orientation into discussion, artmaking, and critiques of all works. As Weintraub (2018) noted, this emphasis will require a paradigm shift from “art-for-art’s sake” to “art-for-life’s sake” (p. 20).

References

Bertling, J. G. (2015). The art of empathy: A mixed methods case study of a critical place-based art education program. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 16(13). https://www.ijea.org/v16n13

Crull, K. (2022). Washed ashore: Making art from ocean plastic. Millbrook Press.

Eckhoff, A., & Spearman, M. (2009). Rethink, reimagine, reinvent: The Reggio Emilia approach to incorporating reclaimed art materials in children’s artworks. Art Education, 62(2), 10–16.

Hasio, C., & Crane, T. J. (2014). Teaching art a greener path: Integrating sustainability concepts of interior design curriculum into the art education curriculum. Art Education, 67(6), 35–39.

Weintraub, L. (2018). What’s next? Eco materialism and contemporary art. Intellect.

Column by:

Joy G. Bertling, Founding Chair, Ecology and Environment Interest Group
Assistant Professor of Art Education, Department of Theory and Practice in Teacher Education, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Website: https://joybertling.com. Email: jbertlin@utk.edu

Jody Boyer, Treasurer and Membership Chair, Ecology and Environment Interest Group
Artist and Educator, University of Nebraska School of the Arts and Omaha Public Schools.