Art-geoscience encounters and entanglements in the watery realm

Abstract

This paper critically explores a 40-year collaboration between a geomorphologist and a relief printmaker from the perspective of the emerging art-science paradigm in the geosciences. Drawing on the authors’ work and practice worldwide, ‘standard art-science’ (the artist as communicator and observer) and emerging ‘transdisciplinary/paradisciplinary’ practices are explored in the watery realm. While standard art-science ‘encounters’ were viewed favourably from the viewpoint of community engagement, especially by commissioning bodies, they did not measurably improve the explanation of science to the public nor offer new avenues for creative investigation. In light of this, the authors undertook a series of explicitly interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary ‘entanglements’ by co-conceiving projects, carrying out joint fieldwork and ‘data’ collection and, most importantly, working together in the studio and laboratory. These projects suggest that multi-scalar approaches are required when using art-geoscience to explore environmental issues which impact significantly on individuals and communities.