CURRENT + ONGOING RESEARCH
DEEP AESTHETICS
Deep aesthetics is essentially transdisciplinary in nature. It is rooted in the primary ground of the aesthetic as sensuous engagement, woven from strands from philosophy - especially phenomenology - depth psychology, philosophical anthropology, and diverse cultural knowledges. Deep aesthetics foregrounds the backgrounded relational and interconnected aspects of life and living beings, re-situating humankind within a complex world of enmeshed and interdependent Being and mutual becoming. It focuses on depth of engagement and a radical intersubjectivity. Most importantly, deep aesthetic engagement offers revelatory, and potentially transformative, experience. My interest in developing a deep aesthetics is rooted in the question of how to transform human-world and interspecies relations, with a focus on abandoning the dangerous reductive and dualistic ontology of modernity, changing human consciousness and ultimately our behaviours and technologies. Can it be that this is more a matter of re-membering what has been dis-membered, or split apart than of anything new? In the words of psychologist James Hillman speaking of the aesthetic and the Anima Mundi, or soul of the world, "I {often] wonder less how to shift the paradigm than I wonder how we ever got so far off base.”
To read or download conference talks, papers, and publications developing and working with these ideas, please visit: Academia
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RESEARCH, CURATORIAL + PUBLIC PROJECTS archive (selected).
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2022 -25. Researcher-Collaborator - No Culture, No Future: Developing Strategic Research Frameworks for Sustainability and the Arts Scholarship. A Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funded project, the objectives of which are to: identify Canadian and global scholars, artists and practitioners working in sustainability and the Arts (SATA); examine the challenges and barriers to SATA research in Canada; and, to collaboratively develop a comprehensive research strategy for SATA scholarship for the future. With Dalhousie and York Universities, Canada
Co-Developer + Lead
Commission
A Green Vision for the UAE was a 2009 culture + sustainability initiative for the Dubai government. It had 3 main components. The first was a public forum/panel discussion with representatives from the arts + design, marine ecology, business and philanthropy sectors. The second was a semi-directed arts and sustainability residency for 50 UAE artists. The third was a juried exhibition drawn from works of residency artists, and from an open call for submissions on the theme of A Green Vision - a sustainable future for the UAE. Artists, architects, designers all took part along with a senior design class from Zayed University.
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Her skill in connecting communities, individuals, and organizations to events and ideas that engage and inform was immediately apparent to us during the organizing of “A Green Vision.” The task for Beth was to both educate and nurture a group of artists through the curatorial process and through a 2-week residency leading up to an exhibition. Beth was able to bring her extensive knowledge in the field of arts and sustainability to create an effective, first of its kind exhibition in the United Arab Emirates. In addition to the exhibition she reached outside of the artist community and facilitated a dynamic panel discussion that brought together a perfect mix of institutional partners and practicing artists.
Elizabeth Monion + Robert Ferry, Founding Directors, Land Art Generator Initiative, for the Dubai selection committee
Co-Founding + Creative Development Director
What I think is wonderful about the SongBird project is that it is attempting to bring together two ways of knowing about the world; the first is the way of science, and the second is the way of art.
Dr. Freda Pagani, Founding Director, Sustainability, University of British Columbia
A 5 YEAR NATURECULTURE + URBAN BIODIVERSITY PROJECT INVESTIGATING THE ROLE OF THE ARTS IN SUSTAINABLE FUTURES through an active Arts-Science Partnership, and multi-sector engagement.
The SongBird partnership created a pioneering transdisciplinary model project for a culture of sustainable futures. Focused on urban ecology and biodiversity, it included multi-year programs and events engaging diverse sectors, communities, and publics in generative conversation and practices toward sustainable futures. We developed and utilised a celebratory framework embracing a melange of scientific, intercultural, and citizen knowledge. The dual intent was cultural transformation toward sustainability, while demonstrating the capacity of the arts for engendering that transformation.
SongBird pioneered new frameworks for engagement, for inter-sector collaboration, and impacted public practices and policy. 1998 through 2002, Vancouver, Canada.
SongBird is comprehensive and inspired. Its approach and activities foster the fusion of arts and sciences in an effective manner, unlike many other projects we have seen about nature in the city... The beauty of the holistic approach to urban wildlife habitat, the combination of the arts and sciences, is that it makes the city more physically and emotionally healthy for people as well.
Dr. Valentin Schafer, Past Executive Director, Institute of Urban Ecology at Douglas College
