Arts-based environmental education (AEE) brings art education and environmental education together in one undertaking. The approach has two essential characteristics. The first is that it refers to a specific kind of environmental education that starts off from an artistic approach. Different from other types of outdoor or environmental education which offer room for aesthetic experiences, AEE turns the tables in a fundamental way. Art is not an added quality, the icing on the cake; it is rather the point of departure in the effort to find ways in which people can connect to their environment. A second fundamental characteristic is that AEE is one of the first contemporary approaches of bringing together artistic practice and environmental education in which practitioners also made an attempt to formulate an epistemology.
The roots of arts-based environmental education as it was developed in Finland
The term "arts-based environmental education" (AEE) was first coined by Finnish art educator Meri-Helga Mantere in the 1990s. Mantere describes AEE as a form of learning that aims to develop environmental understanding and responsibility “by becoming more receptive to sense perceptions and observations and by using artistic methods to express personal environmental experiences and thoughts”.Mantere, M.-H. (1995). Foreword. In M.-H. Mantere (Ed.), Image of the Earth: Writings on art-based environmental education. (M. Barron, Trans.). (pp. 1-2). Helsinki: University of Art of Design, p. 1. Artistic experiences improve one's ability to see; they help one in knowing and understanding. Therefore, she maintains that these can be of high value in learning about the environment. Mantere's description of her method of art-based environmental education can be taken as a first attempt at a definition:
"What do I do as an environmentalist and as an art teacher? To put it rather simply: I try to support fresh perception, the nearby, personal enjoyment and pleasure of perceiving the world from the heart. To achieve that, it is necessary to stop, be quiet, have time and feel psychologically secure in order to perceive the unknown, the sometimes wild and unexpected. At times conscious training of the senses, decoding the stereotype, is needed. I aim at an openness to sensitivity, new and personal ways to articulate and share one’s environmental experiences which might be beautiful, disgusting, peaceful or threatening. I support and facilitate the conversation with the environment."Mantere, M.-H. (1998). Art and the environment: An art-based approach to environmental education. In L. Rubinstein Reich (Ed.), Rapporter om utbildning, 3 (pp. 30-35). Malmö, Sweden: Lärarhögskolan., p. 32.
In short, Mantere's conception of AEE is grounded on the belief that sensitivity to the environment can be developed by artistic activities.Mantere, M.-H. (1995). Foreword. In M.-H. Mantere (Ed.), Image of the Earth: Writings on art-based environmental education. (M. Barron, Trans.). (pp. 1-2). Helsinki: University of Art of Design, p. 1. As an artist, and as a teacher and therapist, she came to find it more and more important to go back to the basics of the process and skill of perception.Mantere, M.-H. (2004). Coming back to the senses: An artistic approach to environmental education. Here, the question of how we perceive and how we receive or reject the messages of the environment is central. Important to underline - because it counters possible allegations of embracing a too Romantic view of nature – is that there is also room for the “shadow” side of experience, for feelings of disgust, fear and agony.
Early years of development
The historical antecedents of arts-based environmental education as it was developed in Finland go back to 1971, the year that the first European regional InSEA congress was held in that country. Finnish art educators had pooled their efforts to arrange this meeting with the overarching theme “Environmental Protection in Art Education.” Pirkko Pohjakallio is a specialist on multidisciplinary approaches to environmental education in the context of Finnish art education since the 1970s. Quoting Kauppinen (1972), she provides the rationale for the congress at the time: “One reason for making the theme was the wish to emphasize the manifoldness and diversity of our environmental problems – [they] are not purely biological, economic and social ones but also aesthetic ones, and are consequently part of art education, not only as separate subjects of study but also as integrated parts of other subjects dealing with our living environment” (Kauppinen,Kauppinen, H. (1972). Preface (VII). In H. Kauppinen (Ed.), Environment and art education. InSEA 1971. Helsinki: Finnish Art Teachers’ Association. cited in Pohjakallio, 2007).Pohjakallio, P. (2007). Mapping environmental education approaches in Finnish art education.
Already at that time, as Meri-Helga Mantere, notes, attention was paid to aesthetic and critical observation of the environment, both in the education of art teachers and in the curricula of Finnish schools. In the first decade, the focus of the kind of environmental education, practiced in Finland as part of art education, was on the man-made environment. Subjects were environmental pollution and the exploitation of nature. Problems of the environment were visually approached in teaching by identifying, classifying and listing the types and degrees of damages. As Mantere summarizes, “the emphasis was not so much on the environment as it was on politics”.Pohjakallio, P. (2007). Mapping environmental education approaches in Finnish art education, p. 95]).
Similarly, also Pirkko Pohjakallio notes that in the early 1970s, the prevailing interest in art teacher education and in visual arts first was in cultural studies and in linguistic and conceptual directions. The emphasis was on interpretations of expressions of visual communication and on investigating if these revealed ideology and relations of power. It was a progressive move away from integrating art with crafts in the curriculum. Environmental education, at the time, concentrated on problems, and this was reflected in the images that were created in art classes, representing “dying nature, spoilt built environments, factories that polluted, and chaotic traffic jams”.Pohjakallio, P. (2007). Mapping environmental education approaches in Finnish art education, p. 4 In these times of social activism, practicing and becoming art teachers read the ecological and political pamphlets of the time. However, when they tried to address the themes and questions during art lessons, these proved so wide and difficult, that neither pupils nor teacher could envisage any solutions, leading to feelings of despair rather than empowerment. Ultimately this led to a dead end: “the use of conscious, threatening environmental scenarios and political topicalities as intellectual fuel proved to be a questionable idea”.
Change in the 1980s
The 1980s saw a change in Finland. From first being a subject that was limited to environmentally conscious groups and individuals interested in nature conservation, the earth's ecological state started to capture the interest of the general public. Art teaching gravitated to assisting learners in acquiring skills in reading and evaluating the language of the man-made environment. Parallel to that, in teacher education, issues stemming from environmental psychology and environmental aesthetics were discussed. Towards the end of the decade, new trends emerged. Art educators began to develop activities that were strongly influenced by down-to-earth phenomena in environmental art and the new ecological awareness. A key figure in this development of a new approach to environmental education in the 1980s, as Pirkko Pohjakallio notes, was Meri-Helga Mantere. To the latter, an artistically oriented environmental education would be at its best when the artistic and creative perspective would run through the teaching project, from the stage of its planning to the evaluation of its results. Effectively, what this implied was that in the entire environmental education process the emphasis would be on the manner of observing, experiencing and thinking that is customary to art. To grasp a better concept of environmental education, some curriculum required students to contrast human and non-human natures.
Whereas before, art students, on basis of the prevailing orientation at the time of linguistic methods and critical theory, typically used collage of media images rather than personal and intimate contact with the actual environment, this now all began to change. To be sure, students were taken outdoors before by art educators as well, taking their pencils, drawing pads and brushes along. Here's the contrast, in Mantere's own words: "Now the purpose is to search for a more direct connection with the materiality as well as spirituality of nature. Sand, water, or any other environmental material became tools for reflection and expression. Also allusions to the mythical meanings of nature could be a starting point in the art exercises given to students."Mantere, M.-H. (1992). Phenomena of the 80’s: Post-modern art education? Images in time: Essays on art education in Finland (pp. 89-97). Helsinki: University of Art of Design.
When in the 1980s new expressionist painting, earth and environmental art emerged in society, these “were greeted as a breath of fresh air by art educators after the threatening images of the 1970s that had failed to empower those who had created them.”.Pohjakallio, P. (2007). Mapping environmental education approaches in Finnish art education, p. 7 Art students participated in courses on environmental pedagogy and camp schools were organized in “unspoilt” environments such as the Finnish archipelago and Lapland. Pohjakallio lists the following sources of inspiration for the new activities: deep ecology, gestalt therapy, experimental learning theories, and environmental aesthetics. Mantere notes that the ability and experience of Finnish art teachers to work in environmental education through artistic means began to draw the interest of environmental educators in general. What was attractive to them was this insight: “Attitudes and values do not seem to change through teaching that emphasizes scientific facts”.
By consequence, she adds, emotional, aesthetic and practical methods became more and more appreciated. What came into focus was the pupil's own relationship with nature and the environment, which implied a holistic and hermeneutic approach to environmental issues. Pohjakallio adds that in the newly emerging arts-based environmental education, the life-world approach came to stand central. Through that emphasis on the idea that the environment is, first of all, inhabited by persons and not something remote or detached, aspects were taken up that had been mostly neglected in art education's earlier bearings in formalist and semiotic approaches. Characteristically, the inhabitant's relationship with the environment was participatory rather than solely informed by focused attention. It involved a two-way influence and identification:
"In this approach, the environment is as much a drama and narrative as a set of critical insights and political views. In life-world, environmental aesthetics, all the senses contribute to understanding, so that the environment is as much felt as understood. It is partly a tacit affair – but not, as a consequence, beyond theorizing."Pohjakallio, P. (2007). Mapping environmental education approaches in Finnish art education, p. 8