Landscape Aesthetics in Practice: A critical enquiry into the development and use of an arts practice as a constructive intervention within the context of landscape change, community action, Green Infrastructure planning and delivery and Landscape Character Assessment processes.

The research considers why aesthetics, the subjective ways in which we experience and value places, and nature's agency are not readily included in decision-making processes. This action research adopts a hopeful, participatory and auto-ethnographic inquiry into the potential for developing and applying a relational and environmental walking-art practice to overcome this disconnect; an approach which attempts to reconnect art and life, cultural and natural systems. Metaphor is used as a method to reflect upon an emergent art practice. The research considers Felix Guattari's ideas of transversality, developing an ethicoaesthetic paradigm as a critical framework, taking into account the work of relevant practitioners and specifically Grant Kester's arguments concerning reciprocal creative labour. The framework is developed through a weaving metaphor and applied to three community-led land-use change case studies; a canal restoration project, caring for a community woodland and Landscape Character Assessment. The weaving metaphor becomes both a process and an art work capable of revealing and helping to incorporate subjectivity into traditionally objective decision-making processes. As well as facilitating community-wide dialogue, the research has, in some cases, lead to action being taken alongside nature's agency. The research evaluates the transformation of the art practice and its impact, which suggests the positive agency of art as a practical aesthetic in a social and environmental context.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

phd

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Wales Trinity Saint David

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Keating, Richard

• GE Gwyddorau Amgylcheddol
• N Celfyddydau gweledol (Cyffredinol) Am ffotograffiaeth , gweler TR

Dc Identifier Grantnumber

UWTSD

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.uwtsd.ac.uk:1311