In her 2021 book Art and Nature in the Anthropocene, Susan Ballard explores how artists have responded to the ecological crises of our Anthropocene. According to Ballard, contemporary art problematises the way in which Anthropocene discourse defines humanity as a homogeneous actor or species when discussing global change. She writes: ‘In contemporary art, the most interesting challenges to a fixed definition of the Anthropocene are present in artworks … that approach the planetary from situated and local experiences.’1
Thai-born New Zealander Sorawit Songsataya's practice has shared concerns with Ballard's conception of an art for the Anthropocene. The artist employs moving image and sculpture in order to reflect on what it means for humans to shape Earth's geology at local, regional and global levels. This work is the result of Songsataya's research into human interactions with other life forms, through attention to multispecies histories, locality and forms of knowledge bound to place.
Taking as its subject the interconnectedness of human well-being and the well-being of local ecologies, (2021) is a nine-minute video by Songsataya, which screened at the Ural Biennial in Yekaterinburg, Russia in 2021. is personal and almost empathetic, as though it concerns the way humans and other living creatures form relationships with place in complex ways.
