J. Philp Grygny Urban Ecology Center banner
Artist and scholar J. Philip Grygny has spent the past decade exploring “some of the lesser-traveled borders between art and science.” He has also led artistic experiments in connecting people with nature in aesthetic, embodied ways. On Saturday, May 18, from 12:30 to 3 p.m. at the Urban Ecology Center in Milwaukee’s Riverside Park, Grygny will present his findings in this realm. The program, titled “Wild Knowing: The Role of the Arts in Ecological Culture.” is described as a “moderately revolutionary multimedia performance of sounds, stories and images.”
“There is a growing realization that our planetary crisis is a matter of culture just as much as of technology and legislation,” said Grygny. He strives to counter the “dry academic lecture” and invite participants to have fun along the way. Due to the urgency of global environmental issues, Grygny believes that “It’s worth asking: what would an ecological culture look like? How could we achieve it?”
Grygny hopes to inspire and facilitate artists, educators, and anyone with a passion for nature “to explore how art—the language of nature—can be our vessel on the journey of transforming our culture from one that tries to dominate the natural world to one that cooperates with living things.” The 40-minute presentation will be followed by a guided forest walk that incorporates elements of performance to help bring participants “into another world, a world that, paradoxically, is always there for us: the world of living things.”
Performance Ecology Project
Grygny earned a master’s degree in theater from the University of Minnesota and a Ph.D in humanities from the University of Texas-Dallas. In 2017, he founded the Performance Ecology Project to explore how artistic and contemplative practices can deepen humans’ relationships with the living world. His writings have been published by the Center for Humans and Nature, as well as in other national, regional and local publications. He has taught at several institutions of higher education, and has created, collaborated, and performed in numerous productions.
In an essay published by the Center for Humans and Nature, Grygny wrote, “Body knowledge is an ancient part of our human heritage: the earliest literate civilizations created exercises explicitly to connect practitioners with a kind of primordial experience, whether Tao, Brahman or Buddha nature. In modern times, various savants have developed body practices out of a perceived need for a habitually disembodied culture to ‘come to its senses.’ In the past few decades performing artists have adopted a whole spectrum of techniques to ground themselves ‘in the moment’ where creativity occurs. Since all these diverse practices work with attention and the body, they all have the power to awaken a sensory, aesthetic, and emotional pre-reflective relationship with the natural world.” Some of J. Philip Grygny's essays can be found at humansandnature.org/j-p-grygny.
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The Urban Ecology Center is located at 1500 E. Park Place, Milwaukee. Meet in the Community Room on the lower level. No registration is required. For more information, contact Grygny at jgrygny@gmail.com.
