A Companion Object: Materialising a multispecies sensibility through creative practice in an ecological crisis

How may multispecies fieldwork expand creative practice to promote a decentred human relationship with nature? A case-study using citizen-science moth recording in the UK.

This practice-based research develops concepts and methods for decentring the human in relationships with the natural world through creative practice. I use citizen-science fieldwork recording moth species as an entry point to think through ecological entanglements with other species. I then critically reflect on how this process may inform a creative practice rooted in craft. I contextualise the practice through a theoretical framework that synthesises understandings from feminist environmental philosophy (Plumwood, Haraway, Puig de la Bellacasa), post-anthropocentrism (Braidotti) and social science thinking on care (Tronto, Gilligan). From these relational ontologies I construct a conceptual and thematic framework for communicating a multispecies sensibility. Informed by multispecies ethnography (Kirksey and van Dooren, Kohn), I develop an autoethnographic methodology that presents relationships with the more-than-human as a series of ethical encounters, which becomes the basis for an expanded creative practice. Outputs include creative writing, moving image, collaboration and textile works.

Citizen-science provides a theoretical and methodological basis from which to extend craft and visual arts practice towards explicitly ecological forms of expression. Creative practice communicates those findings beyond the didactic confines of scientific scholarship through the presentation of alternative relational narratives. These in turn can magnify cultural discussions, unpick anthropocentric views and build ecological literacy. The aim is to re-engage human emotions in curiosity, sensitivity and empathetic connection with the more-than-human.

The thesis contributes concepts, methods and practices that untangle the intentions, form and content of craft-based practice to redirect what is materialised through the act of imagination. Decentring the human in ecologically-engaged creative practice also decentres object making as a primary goal, redirecting energies through an expanded practice that includes public engagement, activism and conservation work.