Artists Activating Sustainability

Sellers-Young has provided an insightful text into the specific relationships between places and practices. By looking into the deep history of how the bioregions of Oregon developed geologically, in relationship to human cultures which have called them home, and up to the present-day work of contemporary arts engaged with the strata of these histories, this book highlights how these specific entanglements shape the way artists work and the way art works on society —Ian Garrett, Associate Professor, Department of Theatre and Performance, School of the Arts, Media, Performance & DesignYork University, Canada.

Barbara Sellers-Young’s timely, elegant and detailed portrait of the artistic soul of the place we now call Oregon attests to the generative, sustaining power of artistic practice in diverse communities. Like the waterways that nourish the rich ecological diversity of the region, Artists Activating Sustainability maps the artistic creativity, collaboration and activism that have shaped and influenced the wider Pacific Northwest. Artists become catalysts of a just and sustainable future, the book argues, as they celebrate, document, provoke and help heal communities — Theresa J. May, Artistic Director, Earth Matters on Stage/ Professor, University of Oregon, USA.

Artists Activating Sustainability focuses on the embodied relationship between the landscape, the artists, and their artistic practice as well as how the artists’ engagement activates sustainability in the state of Oregon. By investigating arts and sustainability through the ethos of communities in Oregon —– the landscape, community identity, and the artists’ experiences in forming that identity —– it becomes possible to reflect on and recognize the broader issues that make life sustainable and re-engage a purposeful, environmentally conscious relationship with our community and our world— Kin-Yan Szeto, Professor of Theatre and Dance, Appalachian State University, USA.