Arts as Situated Knowledges of Nature

This study is part of Agata's doctoral project “Nature in Polish Visual Arts in the Years 2000–20—a Philosophical Analysis,” which examines the current changes in the status of the human-nature relationship in Poland through the prism of Polish visual arts from the first two decades of the twenty-first century. By juxtaposing the situated knowledges created by artworks representing a narrow temporal and regional frame with some of the leading theories and concepts from the global interdisciplinary discourse, the study aims to introduce nuance into these conceptualizations. The theories and concepts used in the project include: "The New Epoch: Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene, Plantationocene"; "Becoming-with; Making kin; Assemblage; Non-anthropocentric Perspective"; and "Ferality." Primarily philosophical, the project also employs qualitative research methods to analyze the strategies and methods used by the seventeen selected artists to address the issue at hand, and the contexts through which the human-nature relationship is manifested, including urban spaces and planning, coal mining, activism, and working through the unresolved traumas of the past. There are therefore two interconnected frames within this study. The first examines how the chosen examples of art can serve as a form of knowledge creation, an inquiry into the human-nature relationship, a unique method and a language. The other is devoted to constructing a model of the human-nature relationship within this situated context, a complex patchwork of sometimes conflicted insights, reflecting the troublesome and multifaceted nature of this relationship.