Environmental Justice, ‘Collapse’ and the Question of Evidence: what can the arts contribute? A Dialogue.

Abstract

In this article an artistic researcher and a natural scientist engage in a dialogue about the topics of environmental Justice, ‘collapse’ and evidence and their inter-linkages. They explore the different resonances that are possible between the work and thinking of ecologists and artists and discuss questions such as: How can we turn environmental issues into social issues and how can the concept of justice or rather injustice help? Does the idea of framing environmental problem as a justice issue work at the grand scale of planetary problems such as climate change or the global-scale degradation of soils, biodiversity and ecosystems that might eventually lead to a collapse of our society in its present form and of the functioning of the planetary ecosystem? What roles do different forms of evidence play for uncovering issues of justice and collapse but also for helping people to deal with them?