Preface (Building Common Ground: Ecological Art Practices and Human-Nonhuman Knowledges)

The edited volume "Building Common Ground: Ecological Art Practices and Human-Nohuman Knowledges" was conceived to foster the building of common ground between artist-researchers and scholars operating at the juncture of visual, performing and media arts, and the environmental humanities. As art research methods have become increasingly crucial in envisioning and (pre)interpreting the massive planetary changes that are defining contemporaneity – by consequently creating awareness and a sense of care for every form of life and of interspecies relationship – it is of utmost importance to bridge the gap between academic and artistic research. Sharing problems, methodologies and tools constitute the basic premise for the work done by the social and environmental humanities, together with the arts and the natural sciences, and for preparing a much needed epistemological shift; that is, bringing human and non-human knowledge closer together.