This anthology, written from the disciplines of ecological literacy and arts, focuses on creative responses to climate change and other global environmental crises. The term “response” is understood in a broad sense and may presuppose any self-reflective action, an intellectual or physical reaction to a perceived (ecological) situation or problem. The texts are deliberately not limited to any genre, theoretical or methodological approach but use rather imagination as the foundation for creativity. In this respect, the book provides important insights and valuable inspirations also for other fields of the humanities, especially for international law and international environmental law, where similar questions relating to global environmental problems are at stake.
With Katarina Leppänen and Auður Aðalsteinsteinsdottir as editors, the book compiles contributions from notable scholars in the field of Nordic ecocriticism. It depicts examples of environmental literature, visual art and entertainment from Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. In the individual chapters, they are put into dialogue with the discourse on environmental crisis in the arts and humanities, all of them united in the explicit purpose of initiating change. In doing so, the artistic representations reach far beyond any imaginary national or regional borders and may also initiate ideas and solutions in different contexts and at larger scale.
In line with such an open and not limited artistic approach, Auður Aðalsteinsdóttir explores in Chapter 1 a possible shift from anthropocentric to ecocentric aesthetics, and what such a shift might entail. Entitled as “Complex Aesthetics” and based on examples of surrealism and its ecological aspects in contemporary Icelandic literature and art, Aðalsteinsdóttir provides showcases for a renewed awareness in respect of the complexity and related interactions in times of climate change. Interesting is the notion of ecocentric aesthetics, which in this context is not narrowed to an anthropocentric perspective but rather extended to a posthuman worldview and “characterized by engagement, unstable boundaries, continuous processes, and non-hierarchical interconnections” (9).
The notion of ecocentric aesthetics is also apparent in Chapter 2, in which Katarina Leppänen explores it from the perspective of hearing. In relation to climate change, this entails, according to Leppänen, also the sensing of the more-than-human world, represented by our fellow species, through history and down to a microscopic level. Leppänen’s text is a call for attentiveness; attentiveness to the world and the warning of climate change or a “search for resonance with something as abstract and undefinable, yet cultural desirable” (40), a concept that she calls wishful listening.
In Chapter 3 “Happiness in the Age of Disaster”, Torsten Bøgh Thomsen investigates eco-mourning and climate melancholia in Danish ecopoetry. Critically, he challenges the preconception that ecopoetry should inherently offer hope or enhance our appreciation of the natural world. However, he also rejects the view of “climate melancholia” as an expression of favoring pessimism over optimism. Instead, he interprets it as a reflective mode that creates space for contemplation (58); or as a form of ecological awareness that recognizes how “current structures and types of violence are perpetuated and enforced [even] when we construct the future based on promises happiness” (59).
Inspirations to the current discourses on Rights of Nature, generally understood as a legal and ethical framework recognizing that ecosystems and natural communities possess inherent, inalienable rights to exist, flourish and regenerate, rather than being treated merely as human property,[i] are especially offered in Chapters 4 and 5, written by Georgiana Bozîntan and Karoliina Lummaa. Based on the examples of the novel Varmá (named after the river in southwest Iceland) and contemporary poetry on CO₂ (Carbon Dioxide), the authors examine how non-human forms of existence are portrayed as actors with narrative agency. Although based on imaginary approaches of ecoliteracy, interesting implications can be drawn to present legal and philosophical debates, covering themes such as legal personhood of natural entities (others than humans) or the legal standing and representation of these entities.
Ecopoetry is discussed in Chapter 6, written by Johan Alfredsson. In his analysis, Alfredsson focusses on the portraiture of the nature-culture divide in Swedish nature poetry in the 20th century. While analyzing the poetry and poetics of Bengt Emil Johnson, he discovers not only a deeply felt and experienced ecological interest, but also an early, formative encounter with mid-century avant-garde (107). These insights create a new perspective on ecopoetry and its role in communicating linguistic responses to recent ecological questions.
In Chapter 7, “The Carrier Bags of Ecocentrism,” Ana Stanićević depicts alternative publishing practices and production methods currently established in the Nordic book market. The examples of micropublishers, distribution methods, choices of material and self-publishing stipulate critical thinking towards traditional academic publishing in general. Questions of access to ever bigger, most profitable and more expensive, as well as highest ranked academic journals and book publishers are similarly relevant to legal and philosophical scholarship publications. How can the principles of transparency and accountability be ensured under ecocentric criteria? How could non-human voices made to be heard? And who bears the costs of publishing and disseminating related accounts? These and many other related inquiries may be stimulated by Stanićević’s exploration.
Creative responses in relation to video games and TV series are presented in Chapters 8 and 9, authored by Xin Liu and Ole Martin Sandberg. Both of them deal with ecological awareness generated through visual arts, in general, and with critical ethical self-reflection, in particular. In association with Timothy Morton’s dark ecological awareness to noir, Liu uses the notion of murderous cuteness to examine the role of the game and the gamer in stimulating ecological awareness; among others in relation to the game “Skábma” (Snowfall), a game play on human-environmental relations through the lens of Sámi cosmologies. Sandberg, in contrast, examines the subject of ecological awareness in relation to popular Netflix series, and asks critically whether the sujet of climate dystopias, often leading to desperation and paralysis, should not be replaced by alternatives of preparation and active engagement. Inspirational in this context is especially the playfulness and imaginary facilitation of visual arts in portraying diverse human-environmental relations and thereby crossing cultures, times and spaces.
An encouragement for creative thinking can be also found in Chapter 10. In this chapter, Camilla Brudin Borg examines the question “whether metaphors can create novel sustainable visions of future transformation” on the basis of seventy-two utopian future stories on “what would be good for both humans and the planet” (166). Remarkable is the fact that the research material (utopian future stories) was collected through a citizen-science project, facilitated through the researchers in cooperation with the Swedish Nobel Museum’s educational program and a creative writing magazine. Citizen science is an increasingly established practice across various academic disciplines, where volunteers of the general public collaborate with professional scientist in certain research projects. In the Polar regions, it is especially apparent in relation to tourism. However, since the practice is still sporadic and lacks cross-disciplinary guidance, further research is strongly needed. Insofar, the present examination provides valuable knowledge and may set impulses for further collaborative and inter-and multidisciplinary research among scientists and non-scientists.
The last chapter of Sigrún Inga Hrólfsdóttir portrays the lifework of the Icelandic artist Hildur Hákonardóttir, who’s artistic activity was firmly grounded in ecofeminist thinking. Based on the diverse artworks of Hákonardóttir, mainly performed through visual arts and first and foremost using the media of weaving, Hrólfsdóttir sheds light on the diverse roles of an artist in society, be it “as a herald of new ideas and approaches”, “as a constructive critic who chooses sustainability in life and in art” or “as a guardian and nurturer of cultural heritage” (199). These insights elucidate once more the importance of artistic contributions to ecological studies in general, and to environmental law, politics and ethics in particular.
The book’s chapters are interwoven by the art works of angela snæfellsjökuls rawlings, a plural entity in the shape of a mineral, plant, animal, person, place, or thing, working as interdisciplinary artist-researcher with languages as dominant exploratory material. Inspired by literary festivals in Norway and Greenland, the texts of angela snæfellsjökuls rawlings are short essays and experimental poems, arranged in a kind of glossary according to the artist-researcher’s interlingual conception. Through a compilation of direct place-related observations and facts, the texts don´t impose any assessment but rather invite for individual imagination and interpretation by the reader, thus, enabling critical self-engagement with the environmental contexts.
As demonstrated by these creative explorations in environmental literature and visual arts, imagination is a powerful tool to develop novel and innovative approaches to the pervasive ecological questions of our time. Questioning and transcend anthropocentric frameworks, embracing uncertainty, going out of proportion, facing dark realities and include fiction are only a few examples of how to use imagination innovatively in the field of ecocriticism. Why should it be mainly explored by literacy and arts? Why not being fertilized to international law and environmental legal studies? Legal imagination has been always activated in times of crisis, when legal practice failed to find solutions to factual reality. In reference to a last year’ article of Polar Law researchers Romain Chuffart, Mana Tugend and Apostolos Tsiouvalas,[ii] it should be urgently activated, and possibly extended by speculative thinking and prefiguration, to transform present failed legal concepts and orders into more responsive and responsible ones capable to address universal environmental concerns. Against this background, the presented book provides a timely and strongly encouragement for inter- and crossdisciplinarity research among the humanities and arts to investigate the potential of imagination for creative responses to environmental crisis.
References
[i] As for a non-representative selection of literature providing insights to current discourses on Rights of Nature, see among others: David R. Boyd,The rights of nature: A legal revolution that could save the world (ECW press, 2017); Daniel P. Corrigan and Markku Oksanen (eds), Rights of Nature: A Re-Examination (Routledge, 2021); Mihnea Tănăsescu, Understanding the rights of nature: A critical introduction (transcript Verlag, 2022); César Rodríguez-Gravito, More-Than-Human Rights: Law, Science, and Storytelling Beyond Anthropocentrism? (NYU MOTH Project, 2024)
[ii] Romain Chuffart, Mana Tugend and Apostolos Tsiouvalas, To the Earth and Back: Expanding Polar Legal Imagination, The Arctic Institute, Planetary Series, 2025, https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/earth-back-expanding-polar-legal-imagination/