The ecological challenges of our (so-called) Anthropocene era are not readily soluble through technological fixes. They require imagination, creativity, deep questioning, and radical resourcefulness.
EcoCultureLab is devoted to new forms of collaboration between artists, humanists, scientists, designers, and engaged practitioners of many kinds. In particular, it aims to be a nerve center for developing, critically assessing, and sharing forms of artistic, media, and cultural engagement that bring momentum and conviction to the scholarly and activist work of socio-ecological change. EcoCultureLab is devoted to the building of a culture that is socially and ethically just, aesthetically gratifying, and ecologically viable.
Spurred by these broad goals, EcoCultureLab focuses on three lines of effort: (1) Creative media pedagogies, (2) Research and critical practice, and (3) Local and international collaborations.
EcoCultureLab is an outgrowth of BASTA! (Bridging the Arts, Sciences, and Theory for the Anthropocene), a network of scholars and practitioners centered at the University of Vermont and in the Greater Burlington area. It is coordinated by Adrian Ivakhiv, UVM professor of environmental thought and culture, together with a steering committee of scholars, artists, and activists.
EcoCultureLab is based at the University of Vermont and is generously supported by the University of Vermont UVM Humanities Center, the cross-college Environmental Program, and the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources. It welcomes the participation of any who share its general vision.
Why “Culture for the Ecozoic”? As defined by theologian, “geologian,” and cultural historian Thomas Berry, the Ecozoic era is an era to come in which life systems including human systems find an optimum functionality in their “mutually enhancing relations.” The idea is provocative, but EcoCultureLab is open to all conceptual experimentation for rethinking how we humans get along with each other and with the more-than-human world. “Culture for the Ecozoic” suggests that we are engaged in the generation of cultural forms and habits that would move us collectively toward better relations all around: among ourselves and with others.