Sculpture-based activity
Creative play with sculpture can activate the imagination while helping individuals process and develop new understanding about ecological and climate justice issues in a non-linguistic format. Using modelling clay[1] and one's hands, participants explore subjective responses and experiment with communicating meaning visually through the use of shape, metaphors and form. Especially among those with little to no art training, clay is one of the more versatile and accessible materials for engaging participants.
I was introduced to the concept of sculpture-based education by artist and restoration ecologist Amy Lambert. Lambert explains that these activities "challeng[e] the privilege of language-based epistemologies" in humanities and social sciences pedagogy, while moving participants "further into the subjective and relational ways of knowing found in the arts." Art-making can be dismantling, she writes, because "you don’t always know where you’re going, what you’re creating (most of the time) and it’s particularly powerful to discover something you didn’t know about yourself and/or your relationships. What you create can be aggressive or even disturbing – something that makes others feel uncomfortable. That’s the risk of art-making and the responsibility or art-making."
Art-making also reminds us that as much as we work to put into words the unspoken emotional dimensions arising from environmental loss, language has limitations as a tool for developing contemplative and reflective capacities. The arts open up spaces for alternative forms of understanding and engagement, and in unsettling the ordinary, they can loosen our imaginations so we are better equipped to respond to emerging uncertainties with creative and meaningful action.
Created by Isabella Rogen (Northwood High School, Irvine, CA)
It is especially helpful to emphasize ideas like "creativity" and "play" when facilitating these activities, which reassures participants that they don’t have to be “good” at art. Here are the instructions I use in my seminar:
Identify an emotion, experience, idea, memory, or question you have in relation to our climate crisis, and use the modelling clay to explore your response to this issue. It is not necessary to have a particular concept in mind before you start: just begin playing with the clay, observing how it feels in your hands and responds to pressure as you squeeze, flatten, stretch or press it. Ideas or impressions may emerge or transform in the process of handling the clay. Also, if you do start with a specific concept to represent, do not feel bound to stick with that plan if ideas shift along the way. For this activity, the process of creation and play is ultimately more important than any final product.
It is also helpful to offer prompts that participants might contemplate as they experiment with clay. Examples include: Working in an education system where linguistic or numeric modes are dominant ways of representing meaning, how might the arts elicit different ways of knowing, feeling, perceiving? What does it mean for abstract concepts or feelings to take form through physical materials? How might the very division between the material/conceptual be complicated through this activity?
Facilitators might also have participants warm up before they respond creatively to the bigger personal issue. After getting comfortable with the properties of their clay and what it can “do,” ask them to create something based on one or two words. For example: “you have one minute to create commitment" or "brilliant.” The time limit will push participants to bypass their “thinking” and respond with basic shapes, sizes, weight, textures of clay that represent a feeling rather than a symbol that represents subject matter (e.g. the shape of a heart). If there is time, start with basic words that represent feelings and emotions (eg. sad, happy, excited) and end with more complex concepts (uprising, trace). If you don’t have time (4-5 iterations of 1-5 minutes), don’t present more complex concepts, as this can risk frustration and lead them to give up during this warm-up phase.
[1] Ceramic or oil-based clay, polymer clay, salt dough, or other malleable substances can be used. Lambert also advises having everyone use the same clay, preferable with earth tones, stoneware, or red/brown tones: "Bright artificial colors (Crayola) remind many participants of childhood and whatever object is created is informed by childhood experiences as such, which is not necessarily the objective for this activity."
Created by TJ Navarro (Northwood High School, Irvine, CA)
Created by Chloe Sheng (Northwood High School, Irvine, CA)
In one recent workshop at University of Washington Bothell, participants chose to explore their responses to a recent U.N. report on collapsing wildlife populations -- a reading that presented particular challenges as we tried to process the incomprehensible figure of a million species at risk of extinction. Some clay sculptures were literal (a tombstone, a human figure doubled-over with despair) while others were more abstract (a flattened disk with a sinking feature in the middle; a wad of material with a massive chunk violently ripped out). Some focused on the process rather than a final product, including a student who pulled out tiny pieces of clay from the main block and meticulously shaped them into various forms, and then smashed them over and over to visualize the wantonness of extinction. As the participant explained in a subsequent reflective writing response, she had assigned herself the task of "doing this a million times" (knowing, of course, that that was impossible), but in so doing, the activity forced her to confront both the unthinkable scale of extinction, as well as the tragedy and senselessness of destroying life after its wondrous evolutionary journey into its present form.
During the process of sharing our objects with each other as a group, many other participants developed rich insights from discussing this particular clay project, including one who noted how it surfaced the limitations of statistical representation of death and suffering. While acknowledging the usefulness of numerical depictions in certain cases, the reliance on data-driven analysis in his own education had "deadened" his response over time. Others chimed in to contemplate ways that art could help overcome that numbness and help us feel the raw dimensions of loss anew, spurring a sense of responsibility and commitment to action.