Regenerative Art

Abstract

This thesis utilizes a systems-thinking, relational process approach in its writing style, bridging multiple discourses and disciplines to depart from the problematics of the Anthropocene discourse. This is done through the examination of lessons learned from the well-established Indigenous-led environmental and social justice movements and intersectional environmentalism, the histories of which are both entangled in the traumatic divisions brought on by settler-colonialism, that have led to the capitalist imperative to own and control nature. Applying these lessons to environmental art and theory, this thesis calls for the decolonization of the Anthropocene discourse through the following steps: reflection and examination of colonial tendencies across the Ontological Turn of Euro-Western discourse, applications of the Ally to Accomplice concept, the Holding of Space, Learning from Grassroots Movements, and Ethical Relationality. It holds hope that this methodology can aid the many directions of Posthumanist thinking to act as a catalyst and change the direction of the Anthropocene epoch to become a force of regeneration, of both discourse and the environment.