Art, climate change and (other) eco materials: rethinking the cosmopolitanization of aesthetics and the aesthetics of cosmopolitanization with Ulrich Beck. (5th February 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: THORSEN, LINE MARIE
• Is Part Of: Global networks. Volume 20:Number 3(2020)
• Page Start: 564
• Page End: 583
• Publication Date: 2020-02-05
• Subjects: AESTHETIC PRACTICES -- CLIMATE CHANGE -- COSMOPOLITANIZATION -- HONG KONG -- JAPAN -- METHODOLOGICAL COSMOPOLITANISM; Internationalism -- Periodicals; Globalization -- Periodicals; 303.482
• DOI: 10.1111/glob.12278
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1470-2266

Abstract

Abstract: Based on fieldwork in Japan and Hong Kong, I ask how methodological cosmopolitanism, as formulated by Ulrich Beck, may afford new and highly needed modes for grappling with climatically concerned art and aesthetic practices across geographical regions. I will argue that methodological cosmopolitanism serves as an important framework for approaching such art practices, and suggest that two overall intertwined strands concerning aesthetic practices engaged in global issues of climate change, emerge from this – the cosmopolitanization of aesthetics and, reversely, the aesthetics of cosmopolitanization. Departing from my fieldwork among farming artists in the Hong Kong countryside and in the Japanese satoyama – rural mountain – areas, I will, on the one hand, argue that art practices are 'cosmopolitanized' by the awareness of global risks, manifested in anticipation of the comprehensive climatic changes (in)discriminately affecting across nations and regions. At the same time, and importantly, art practices are actively attending to this 'risky' cosmopolitanization, giving aesthetic voice, form and 'visuality' to unfolding climatic issues and concerns and hereby practising what I will call an 'aesthetics of cosmopolitanization'.