A day after the U.S. presidential election, David Orr had one topic in mind — change.
Orr’s version of the long-needed social action to address the deleterious effects of climate change is not the kind of political sloganeering that fits on a bumper sticker. Rather, it’s transforming how people think about their fundamental relationship to the environment.
As keynote speaker of the three-day “Arts & the Environment: Earth, Air, Fire, Water” conference, Orr offered an expansive critique of the cultural forces that have caused the disassociation between humanity and the natural environment, from the industrialized western mind’s obsession with order to the subliminal ways advertising distorts and manipulates desire.
“We need to find ways to combine the rational mind and feeling,” Orr said during his Nov. 5 address at Stamps auditorium. “Art must play a role in bringing about that change.”
Within his entertaining and provocative critique of the contemporary social-economic mindset, he outlined a distinct role for the arts to elevate awareness of what he calls a desperately required 21st-century ecological consciousness.
“Art can do things that science and engineering can’t do,” said Orr, who is the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics at Oberlin College. “Art makes us see, makes us think, makes us laugh, makes us feel.”
To illustrate his point Orr showed artistic images inspired by nature, from Pieter Brueghel’s stirring 1562 painting “Triumph of Death,” to 20th-century artist Robert Smith’s delightful “Spiral Jetty” using nature as his medium.
He also showed American painters Thomas Cole’s and Albert Bierstadt’s grand 19th-century landscape paintings of the American wilderness and Eden-like western frontier. For years, those images fostered myths of America as an untamed, boundless, “chosen” land.
Orr made reference to various topics from Stonehenge to sultry images of female models in a Dolce and Gabbana print advertisement, as he discussed changing the way people think about the environment.
Orr may have taken a circuitous path, but his point was clear: “Artistic energy in western culture has gone into making us dependent consumers,” at the cost of cultivating a critical awareness of pressing environmental problems, he said.
After Barack Obama’s presidential victory, Orr said he was renewed by the prospect for a concerted effort to address ecological issues, despite many pressing economic, foreign policy and domestic issues facing the incoming administration.
“Now is the time for us to visualize what a post-carbon economy looks like,” said Orr, whose books include “Design on the Edge: The Making of a High-Performance Building” (MIT Press, 2006); “The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics and the Environment in the Age of Terror” (Island Press, 2005); and “Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment and the Human Prospect” (Island Press, 2004).
Along with presenting images of a “green world,” Orr outlined the practical side of transforming the economy, pointing to the financing and emerging technologies required to bring about the change.
In addition to his work as a lecturer and author, Orr is known for his breakthrough studies in environmental education and environmental design. In 1996 Orr led a team that constructed one of the greenest buildings in North America, the Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies at Oberlin College.
The goal of “Arts & the Environment,” a recent two-week series of lectures, exhibits and performances, is to discover new ways to raise environmental awareness and assure the future of the planet.
“Arts & the Environment” was produced by Arts on Earth, a campuswide initiative to explore how creativity and innovation is creating collaboration among academic disciplines.
Orr’s keynote lecture was supported by the School of Natural Resources and Environment, and LSA‘s Program in the Environment and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
