Thinking through the ground: Art, ecology, and relational wellbeing
Author Identifier (ORCID)
Cassandra Tytler: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0357-7123
Abstract
This chapter examines the intersection of place-based art practices, ecological attunement, and relational wellbeing. Through Think Like a Worm, a project engaging multisensory and embodied approaches, I explore how creative practices illuminate connections with more-than-human worlds and challenge the isolating structures of neoliberal academia. Think Like a Worm transformed a community garden into a sensory art space, activating empathy and multispecies understanding. The project highlights care as relational, resisting the extractive, individualist imperatives of institutional frameworks. Drawing on feminist and anti-colonial scholarship, I argue for a politics of location, acknowledging inequities in environmental impacts and knowledge production. Creative practices provide counter-pedagogies, promoting ecological literacy, disrupting academic hierarchies, and nurturing circular care relations. This chapter positions art as a mode of world-making, offering relational frameworks to sustain both collective resilience and ecological justice.
Document Type
Book Chapter
Date of Publication
1-1-2025
Publication Title
Creating Wellbeing: The Role of Making Practices in Academic Contexts
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
School
School of Education / Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA)
RAS ID
88291
Copyright
subscription content
First Page
53
Last Page
62
Comments
Tytler, C. (2025). Thinking through the ground: Art, ecology, and relational Wellbeing. In Creating Wellbeing: The Role of Making Practices in Academic Contexts (pp. 53-62). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003664123-7