ABSTRACT
In discussions of the Arts and Crafts Movement, both primary and secondary sources emphasize its concern with “nature.” This chapter explores how the movement could also have environmental ramifications, and positions it as one of many forms of visual culture implicated in the imperial Anthropocene. It suggests aspects of the agency of interior design within environmental change. In light of renewed scrutiny for the idea of “nature” in posthumanities scholarship, the chapter focuses on a reconsideration of the movement informed by ecocritical thinking. Arts and Crafts attitudes to nature, beauty and the environment were therefore to resonate significantly with ecologically destructive practices when the Movement spread to Aotearoa New Zealand. Colonial ecological violence in New Zealand was substantially connected to the prolific importation of non-native species of plants and animals. In perhaps a more faithful interpretation of the Arts and Crafts principle of “fitness to locality,” indigenous plant species also featured prominently within the Movement’s design from New Zealand.
