Thesis Format

Integrated Article

Disaster as a Framework for Social Change: Searching for new patterns across plant ecology and online networks

Christina Battle, The University of Western OntarioFollow

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Art and Visual Culture

Supervisor

Christof Migone

Abstract

This dissertation looks to disaster as a framework for enhancing community and the ways in which small gestures of artistic practice might be utilized for change. Embracing the complexity of disaster, the dissertation weaves linkages across a number of disciplines: disaster studies, climate science, contemporary art, internet studies, and plant ecology, in order to seek out potential tactics. Utilizing artistic strategies, especially an embrace of failure as part of methodology, this dissertation accepts the contradictions of such complexity, asserting that following patterns of overlap is a necessary tactic for approaching emergent and speculative futures. The overall project takes cues from Adrienne Maree Brown, who, in her 2017 book Emergent Strategy, advocates for looking to the multiplicity of the simple interactions that develop complex systems. Prioritizing the imagining of new futures, this research weaves together a number of models as a tactic for considering new methods of approach. Paired with this written document is a body of artistic work spanning gallery exhibitions, organized events and curatorial projects, developed as a way to put theory into practice and to consider how small gestures of practice could have the power to disrupt. The dissertation unfolds by first looking to the history of disaster scholarship, followed by examples of strategies communities have used to tackle disaster when it hits. The text then moves into how technology—specifically social media—impacts our current cultural ethos, influencing how disaster is considered and approached, and concludes with strategies that plant communities use to evade and cope with disaster as potential examples to pull from. Artistic works generated while undertaking this research are interspersed across the main part of the written document as interstices, and a dossier complete with documentation, follows as an appendix.

Summary for Lay Audience

This dissertation looks to disaster as a framework for enhancing community and the ways in which small gestures of artistic practice might be utilized for change. Prioritizing the imagining of new futures, this research weaves together a number of models as a tactic for considering new methods of approach. Paired with this written document is a body of artistic work spanning gallery exhibitions, organized events and curatorial projects, developed as a way to put theory into practice and to consider how small gestures of practice could have the power to disrupt. Artistic works generated while undertaking this research are interspersed across the main part of the written document as interstices, and a dossier complete with documentation, follows as an appendix.

Recommended Citation

Battle, Christina, "Disaster as a Framework for Social Change: Searching for new patterns across plant ecology and online networks" (2019). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 6828.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/6828