Expanding Environmental Awareness in Education Through the Arts: Crafting-with the Environment

Biljana C. Fredriksen is a professor of Art & Craft education and teacher educator at early childhood teacher programs at University of South-Eastern Norway. During her 25 years long teaching practice, she has conducted a number of research projects in collaboration with her students, young children, and early childhood practitioners. Her most recent studies address embodied, experiential and aesthetic entanglements among more-than-humans. Striving for practice based on an idea of evolutionary aesthetics, Fredriksen’s research deals with ecologically holistic understanding of learning where she poses questions about how esthetic approaches to learning can contribute to increased ecological awareness in students of all ages. She is leading the research group Learning and Teaching for Sustainability (LETS), and she is her university’s representative in the International Partner Network of the UNESCO Chair on Education for Sustainable Lifestyles. Fredriksen’s most recent publications are based on her co-existence with horses and alpacas, and her own process of becoming ecological through close encounters with more-than-human inhabitants of their rural farm landscapes.

Camilla Groth is a craft practitioner, researcher and teacher with a Master from Royal College of Art, London and a Doctor of Arts degree from Aalto University, Helsinki. She has a background in ceramic crafts and many years’ experience of studying, teaching and working in the field of art, design and craft, in Europe and Japan. Her creative work has been exhibited in Tokyo, London, Paris, New York and Helsinki and has been acquired by the Finnish state art commission. Her research interests concern experiential knowledge and materiality. Groth has studied embodied making and learning in craft practice and in her recent work also in interdisciplinary collaboration. She has developed an interdisciplinary educational platform for material thinking and learning that encourages reflection on the student’s relationship with materials. In her role as associate professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway, Groth is leading the research group Embodied Making and Learning, in which the aim is to develop knowledge related to embodied making practices, its role for both individuals and the society and the learning that goes on in these human-material interactions.