Environmental art is art which helps people to improve their relationship with the natural world. It's a mutable art form, evolving along with our environmental consciousness.
Much environmental art is made to disappear or transform, designed for a particular place it sometimes cannot be moved in the usual sense. Often made from found and reformed natural and man made materials, environmental art makes a strong statement for recycling. Environmental art sometimes involves collaborations between artists and others, such as scientists, educators or community groups. It is meant to inform, interpret and make us re-envision our connection to the environmental world.
Some environmental artists see themselves as activists, their work being a form of lobbying for change. Others endeavor to inspire people to reconnect with their ecosystem. Environmental art's visual grammar becomes a tool to heal the alienation that can stem from immersion in a consumer based society thereby raising global awareness.
While humans have been making land based art since ancient times, it is possible to trace the growth of environmental art as a 'movement', to late 1960s or the 1970s. In its early phases it was most often associated with sculpture especially site-specific art. The category now encompasses many media. The term environmental art is closely linked to the term Eco-Art. Environmental art reflecting the environmental movement and Ecological art or Eco-Art existing more in a social context.
(Photo Credit: kugelfish on flickr)
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