The Enlightenment of Socially Engaged Art for Ecological Restoration in China

Abstract

As a common social issue for humanity, the ecological crisis has also shifted today’s art world from thinking about the ontology of art to exploring engaged art in the social field. The difference between ecological art and art that creates a relationship with nature, such as environmental art, landscape art, and earth art, is that the former emphasizes what is done for the environment, while the latter highlights what is done on the environment. Ecological art intervenes in society not by creating art in the form of reproduction or representation, but by using art to turn social activities into a public art event. Moreover, ecological art’s means of social transformation is mostly in the form of engaged art, aiming to promote the restoration of human-damaged environments to sustainable ecology. Such activities often do not affect the environment directly, but rather by enlightening the institutions and people who can have a clear impact on the environment. Ultimately, considering humans and nature as a community and trying to live a modern life with natural richness through art in the future is perhaps the fundamental pursuit of art’s social intervention in the ecological field.

Key Words

Socially engaged art, ecological art, performance art, naturality, modernity