This humanities-based project investigates the meaning and significance of ecological grief (‘eco-grief’) in the Nordic context. In the Anthropocene, death and loss become pressing environmental concerns. Destruction of ecosystems, loss of biodiversity, war, the Covid-19 pandemic and slow environmental violence evoke anxiety and grief, manifested in science, art, theory and activism. Recognising commonly unacknowledged grief and researching what it is that we mourn help us understand our relations to the environment, and what we choose to value, preserve or revive.
Theoretically grounded in Environmental Humanities, Feminist Posthumanities and Queer Death Studies, this 4-year project aims to investigate philosophical, artistic and scientific representations of eco-grief in the Nordic context, and thus to:
- Synthesise cultural theory and philosophical understandings of eco-grief;
- Explore eco-grief and crisis imaginaries in contemporary Nordic art;
- Investigate scientific imaginaries of eco-grief, crisis and resilience;
- Set out the grounds for thinking eco-grief in an integrative way.
Empirically, the project examines select contemporary artworks, scientific and popular-scientific communication, existing literature and cultural productions with the use of mixed cultural methods: visual, textual, conceptual, discourse and cultural analysis. It responds to the imminent need of understanding ourselves and our relation to the world around us at the time of unprecedented planetary crises.
PI: Dr Marietta Radomska
Project participant: Prof. Cecilia Åsberg
The project is funded by FORMAS: A Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (“Social and cultural perspectives on climate change and biodiversity” grant: 4,999,924 SEK)
Timeline: 2022-2026
Events:
“Ecologies of Death, Ecologies of Mourning. Vol. II: A Roundtable”, 30th March 2023, Online.
Publications:
Radomska, M. 2024. Mourning the More-Than-Human: Somatechnics of Environmental Violence, Ethical Imaginaries, and Arts of Eco-Grief. Somatechnics 14(2): 199-223. https://doi.org/10.3366/soma.2024.0433
Radomska, M. 2023. Ecologies of Death, Ecologies of Mourning: A Biophilosophy of Non/Living Arts. Research in Arts and Education. Special issue on Death, 2023(2): 7-20. https://doi.org/10.54916/rae.127532
Radomska, M. 2023. “Towards Arts of Eco-Grief: A Queering Reflection”. In State of the Art: Elements for Critical Thinking and Doing, edited by E. Berger, M. Keski-Korsu, M. Radomska and L. Thastum. Helsinki: Bioart Society, pp. 37-45.
Åsberg, C., and M. Radomska. 2023. “Chapter 27. Towards a Low-Trophic Theory in Feminist Posthumanities: Staying with Environmental Violence, Ecological Grief, and the Trouble of Consumption.” In Mapping the Posthuman, edited by G. Hamilton and C. Lau. London: Routledge, pp. 280-299. DOI: 10.4324/9781003322603-333.
Marietta Radomska 