ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ways in which visual art forms new constellations of collective practice to engage and empower citizens in the 21st century around the issue of climate change. It charts how creative pedagogies foster critical and creative thinking through socially engaged and relational practices. Socially Engaged Art (SEA) projects create spaces for actualisation and potentiality, thereby creating a place to think differently and cultivating a ‘transformative imagination’.
The chapter questions the roles of art and art education in the 21st century. It further asks what are the intersectional points of encounter among art, arts education and the arts in education? Finally, it asks how can art and art education support climate change education?
The Grow Room project is presented as a SEA project conducted with preservice initial teachers. The project opens up a space for speculative thinking, making and transformation through art processes, pedagogy and practice. It is based around a greenhouse structure within an institutional educational setting. In the project, undergraduate and postgraduate preservice teachers have the opportunity to develop creative skills and explore novel pathways to think through contemporary visual art practices about the urgent and complex issues of climate change.
