By Claire G Coleman, Jen Rae, Jessica Santone & Robert Walton

Learning Through Art: Speculative Pasts and Pedagogical Imaginaries, edited by Kathryn Coleman, Peter J. Cook, Sarah Healy & Abbey MacDonald
InSEA Publications, 2025

Full book: DOI: 10.24981/2025-LTASPPI

Just this chapter, Read now >

Abstract

What happens next? Speculative future casting offers alternative practices to imagine and scaffold hopeful, desirable and achievable futures through and beyond the confusion of the ‘permacrisis’. To move beyond states of perpetual reactivity to the present and emerging crises, we propose a profound reorientation of the ways we collaborate and mobilise beyond timescales to ensure a liveable future for generations to come. This chapter stages an urgent conversation between artists, educators, and activists that addresses the creative future casting methods employed in the transdisciplinary projects Child of Now (Walton and Coleman) and Centre for Reworlding (Coleman and Rae). The conversation considers the role of experimental and speculative inquiry in shifting perceptions of time in relation to the Aboriginal Australian concept of the ‘everywhen’; narratives of the present and the ‘permacrisis’; and, the figure of the child and unborn generations. The discussants consider how creative approaches may help us imagine futures centred on intergenerational justice. Walton and Coleman reflect on their collaborative work, both with each other and the public, on a massively co-authored storytelling project to collectively imagine the life of a child born now. Coleman and Rae discuss the labs and workshops at the Centre for Reworlding that build intersectional and transdisciplinary collaborative capacity, creative resilience, and climate emergency adaptation. Jessica Santone moderates the conversation.

By Jacina Leong, Tamara Borovica, Larissa Hjorth and Jen Rae

In: Open Cultural Studies.

ABSTRACT

With the effects of the climate emergency increasingly shaping our daily lives, feelings of ecological distress – particularly ecogrief and anxiety – have become palpable. In this article, we focus on these affective responses and examine how creative practice collaborations are curating possibilities for hope and resilience. We argue for the importance of such creative engagement, as ecological distress can lead to paralysis, nihilism, or despair, making it imperative to explore how creative practices open pathways for collective healing and actionable hope in the face of crisis. Following Lesley Head’s (2016. Hope and grief in the Anthropocene: Re-conceptualising human-nature relations. Taylor and Francis Group) proposition that grief and hope are intrinsically entwined – hope as an embodied act within the affective fabric of everyday life – we consider how these emotional registers are navigated through artistic and collaborative processes. Increasingly, contemporary practitioners are turning to creative methods to make space for emotional complexity and to cultivate new strategies for connecting grief with hope. This article brings together insights from the environmental humanities and creative practice research to consider how such approaches can support resilience and social change. Through examples where creative practice operates as method, approach, and intervention, we explore the affective terrain of climate justice, arguing that creativity and art are essential for fostering empathetic engagement and imagining more hopeful, liveable futures.

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in Pedagogical Art in Activist and Curatorial Practices edited by Izabel Galliera and Noni Brynjolson.description

Abstract

Portage (2019–2021) is a multi-platform project in four distinct parts, initiated by Melbourne-based Canadian Métis-Scottish artist Jen Rae, in collaboration with multiple collaborators and partners. Commissioned by Arts House Melbourne as part of their 2016–2021 artist-led Refuge initiative, Portage centered Indigenous knowledge systems and pedagogies to subvert conventional platforms for engagement in the climate emergency from didactic fact-sharing to relational, experiential and collaborative. It advocates for a multiplicity of knowledges to address climate adaptation and imagine a more just future. In this text, we consider the pedagogical dimensions of Portage, arguing that the intimate and collaborative learning that this project entailed demonstrates a creative, caring and intergenerational approach to climate adaptation, disaster risk reduction and community-led resilience. We consider each aspect of the project through its design and documentation, situating these in relation to Indigenous knowledge systems that emphasize interconnected land-based practices, diverse and intimate forms of learning, the nonscalability of relationality, and the inseparability of knowledge, praxis and experience. While some works of art that respond to the climate crisis begin with the presumption of audiences’ deficit of knowledge and the imperative to use art to better deliver Western scientific findings to the public, Portage acknowledges participants’ diverse ways of knowing and the skills each person has to share. This work of pedagogical art shows the importance of learning together as a relational, contextual and improvisational mode of adapting to and preparing for climate emergency risks and impacts.

By Jen Rae and Claire G. Coleman

In The Mourning After. RMIT Gallery, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology edited by Larissa Hjorth (exhibition catalogue).

Read: https://www.themourningafter.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/TMA_Catalogue_Tabloid_Rotated-Version.pdf

In: The Relationship is the Project; A guide to working with communities. J. Lillie, K. Larsen, C. Kirkwood and J. Brown. Sydney, NewSouth Publishing.

Print publication: https://therelationshipistheproject.com/

Get in touch if you want an author’s copy of the chapter.

Plurality University Network. Interview conducted by Juliette Grossmann.

To read: https://www.plurality-university.org/publications/jen-rae-interviewiption