[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/seedwalk.jpg” caption=”The McMaster Museum of Art will host a panel discussion on Eco Art on Thursday, June 26. Photo by Dawn Owen. “]While Eco Art can help cultivate an appreciation for nature and broaden intellectual understanding, it can also spark political action and ultimately shape society.

The McMaster Museum of Art will host a panel discussion on Eco Art with Hamilton-area artists Susan Detwiler, Tor Lukasik-Foss and Steve Mazza along with moderator Nora Hutchinson on Thursday, June 26 at 6 p.m. The panel discussion is presented in collaboration with the Hamilton Artists Inc.

Eco Art, or Ecological Art, is an art movement that explores the interplay between nature and culture. Emerging in the 1960s in response to the environmental movement, it is now widely practiced, addressing the state of the environment worldwide — from climate change and sustainability to local ecological situations.

American artist Alan Sonfist was one of the pioneers of the movement. In 1965, for his piece Time Landscape, he transplanted more than 200 native trees into the Bronx. Due to his efforts, construction of a proposed motorway was abandoned and the park he created still remains today. The power of the artist as a bringer of change was brought to the fore.

In the 1980s, artist/icon Joseph Beuys created what is arguably the most famous and ambitious Eco Art project to date, again involving tree planting, called 7000 Oaks. His plan called for the planting of 7,000 trees, each paired with a columnar basalt stone approximately four feet high above ground throughout the city of Kassel. It took five years to complete, but the legacy of the work continues.

Said Beuys, “I believe that planting these oaks is necessary not only in biospheric terms, that is to say, in the context of matter and ecology, but in that it will raise ecological consciousness — raise it increasingly, in the course of the years to come, because we shall never stop planting.”

Come to the McMaster Museum of Art on Thursday, June 26 for what is sure to be a lively and informative discussion on the impact, relevance and current developments in the Eco Art Movement. The panel discussion is presented as a complement to Susan Detwiler's exhibition, Feral, on view at the McMaster Museum of Art from June 26 to Aug. 30.