Ecorelational Aesthetics Embracing Animality and Conserving Disability

Abstract

The article introduces the concept of ecorelational aesthetics, understood as a realm of artistic production and practice that creates a space for meaningful encounters between the human and the nonhuman, which can facilitate rethinking disability and its place in the world. Ecorelational aesthetics helps dismantle anthropocentric and ableist ways of thinking, and reconceptualizes disability as a crucial form of cultural and biological diversity rather than an aberration or deviation from nature. Analyzing Sunaura Taylor’s paintings, Claire Cunningham’s performances Beyond the Breakwater and We Run Like Rivers (with Julia Watts Belser), the concept behind Hanna Cormick’s performance The Mermaid , and the choreodocumentary Gatunki chronione ( Protected Species , dir. Rafał Urbacki and Anu Czerwiński), the article examines key aspects of this aesthetics which accentuates the essential vulnerability of all human and nonhuman beings and promotes an ethics of (inter)dependence and care. The article also uses this as an opportunity to reflect critically upon Rosemarie GarlandThomson’s notion of conserving disability as a valuable resource, i.e. an alternative way of being in the world that facilitates our cultural, epistemic, and ethical growth.