What is Ecology?

Abstract

There are many ways to try to make sense of that which is. Ecology, which deals with organisms in relation to their environments, makes sense of that which is through the study of relations among and between organisms and their environments. Modern ecology is predominantly understood as a scientific enterprise. However, science as a methodology is too often aligned and entangled with extractive, capitalist logics: the cycle of enclosure–dispossession-scientific practice-imperial expansion not only undergirds and defines the ecological crises of our times but forecloses our ability to conceive of the diverse ways in which life is configured. For ecology, this is a predicament of ethics, yes, but also of a cleareyed understanding of what is (and our relationship to it). The urgent question for ecologists given this predicament is to ask is how to break out of this cycle. This thesis explores the potential of building an artistic practice to question the forms of ecology: how it is conducted, how it is communicated, and what it produces. Drawing inspiration variously from feminist, postcolonial, and ecosocial art, media theory, and philosophy, this thesis probes the limits of ecology under the suspicion that the point of leverage for change is to differently enact how we think, make, and do in relation to the world in, around, and constituting us.