Departing from this art historical context, this interdisciplinary practice-led investigation sets out to examine the burgeoning industry of ‘green solutions’, including: carbon-offset and natural-capital frameworks, phytoremediation, and green finance.

This PhD considers the distributed modes, impacts and aesthetic regimes of this marketplace to illuminate and critically reflect on the capitalisation of nature and the naturalisation of capital. In doing so, this project explores how the production of new distributed artistic forms might act to challenge notions of site, demystifying ‘solutions’ seductive claims, and denaturalising and disrupting the strategies of quantification that underpin them.

This thesis brings together practical work alongside a written analysis. Artworks will mimetically draw on the novel strategies of ‘green solutions’ to develop new artistic forms, using materials including carbon-stocks, serialised publications and sacrificial anodes. Theoretical work will expand upon theories of value and artistic autonomy, critically situating these approaches alongside contemporary debates in eco-materialism, critical theory and post-conceptual art.

This research not only seeks to challenge the rhetoric of ecological techno-fixes, sustainability and global stewardship, but also aims to reflect how contemporary artworks are themselves shaped by environmentally embedded processes of value-formation. In doing so, this PhD seeks to develop a critical artistic praxis that considers ecology at the level of artistic form.

Website: https://www.hughnicholson.net/

Supervisors

Primary Supervisor: Kristen Kreider
Secondary Supervisor: Carey Young