A Deleuzian reimagining of art and the ecovillage

Abstract

Reimagining Art and the Ecovillage develops an expanded understanding of art and the way it functions in the ecovillage within the broader context of the environmental, sustainability movement. Although art plays a vital role, there is little extant research in this field, a shortcoming that this thesis addresses. My overarching question asks whether the ecovillage can be reimagined as a work of art, not in terms of what a work of art is but, drawing on the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, what is enabled by an expanded conception of art. I use a qualitative mixed method design to generate data from semi-structured interviews, art workshops, photography, observation, reflection, and journaling. These are gathered from three Australian ecovillages, Aldinga Arts Ecovillage in South Australia, Billen Cliffs in New South Wales and Crystal Waters in Queensland. The methodological challenge for this project is how to bring together the apparent disparate paradigms of social science research, which inevitably generates static representations, and the open-ended performativity of the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari. The thesis begins from the position that Deleuze's work encourages creative solutions to this problem, offering a dynamic approach to reading the data. Chapters Two, Three and Four examine the ways in which art embeds itself in the social structures, physical spaces and the subjectivities of the ecovillage dwellers. I argue that these structures, spaces and subjectivities work together to produce all of life as a form of art. Chapter Five undertakes a critique of excessive consumption as it links with capitalism, showing how the ecovillage movement stands apart from capitalist tendencies in the way that it engages with art. Finally, in Chapter Six, I explore artworks that I co-produced with the ecovillage dwellers to arrive at the conclusion that while there is always a role for a trained artist to exist in any community, conceiving of and thus reimagining the ecovillage as art, means that the transformative potential of art is available to all as a life practice.

Date of Award	2021
Original language	English