The aim of my paper is to look into the possibilities of movement-based practice in order to enable human relationship with more than human world; in other words, to make possible ecological transformation as it is described in EcoJustice framework. I claim that it is necessary to better understand, how the narrow concept of human is closely connected to the questions of ecological destruction. I suggest that through multi-sensory body awareness and movement practices we can deeply understand our being in the world, because, as Merleau-Ponty says, it is after all our sensual body that ties us to the world. In order to show the connections between the holistic concept of human and ecological transformation, I will present a poem based on a project where my dance animateuring students did sensory explorations out in nature. I will show how multisensory movement practice  and the poetic inquiry can serve as a practice of making eco-philosophy. Both of these artistic practices have a great political possibility, because they evoke emotions and thereby make possible broader and deeper understanding of the world.

I am approaching the human/inhuman relationship from a Goethean point of view. Looking at a famous poet and playwright in this context might seem odd at the first glance, but actually Goethe did also produce a sizable body of scientific work – what he believed would some day be recognized as his greatest contribution to mankind.

Goethe’s way of science is unusual – and now relevant! – “because it seeks to draw together the intuitive awareness of art with the rigorous observation and thinking of science”. Today, someone might call this approach phenomenological.

The purpose of my presentation is to ponder the connection between Goethean science, Beuysian concept of art and a phenomenological approach through art making to the human/inhuman relationship. Beuys, referring to Goethe, had a strongly holistic view of humanity, and a great deal of his oeuvre dealt with this. One significant factor in his art was something Klaus Ottman calls “spiritual materiality”: the materials used in artworks were chosen not only because of their sculptural properties but also and above all because of the spiritual meanings they bear. This will be enlightened by some sample artworks I have made during my studies.

Despite undisputable evidence, it is painfully clear that the knowledge of the current climate change does not have a significant effect on our lifestyle. Thus at the superficial, or propositional level, we know very well that climate crisis exists, but still act as if we do not. Perhaps the knowledge of our own implication in the very lifestyle that sustains and intensifies climate crisis is too much to bear.

In my presentation, I conceptualize this problem through psychoanalytic theory as traumatic and repressed knowledge. Traumatic experience of an ecological crisisis analyzed as an encounter with the uncanny, or the ‘Real’. The uncanny is understood as that which escapes symbolization and causes feelings of both horror and enchantment. As such it is not reducible to experiencing nature as harmonious, intelligible nor predictable. Thereby it is also beyond the grasp of mere propositional knowledge.

Moreover, I see the existence of traumatic knowledge as a significant pedagogical challenge that demands conceptualization if we are to address broader ecological crises through education.

In our global situation of ecological crisis we are forced to rethink the human – non-human relation and its implications to our way of living. In fact, the basis of Western metaphysics must be re-interpreted. This project requires the critical re-understanding of our conception of Being based on the (human) consciousness and its commitments to Nature. I will use the principles of Eros and Thanatos as my conceptual tools of my presentation. These metaphysical principles, that came from the Ancient philosophy to Freud’s psycho-analytical theory, can be seen as the tensional powers of our civilization. In Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s late philosophy the holistic order of Nature prevails its own Eros, Nature’s own productivity as independent from human beings. In my presentation I will re-consider the implications of our primordial intertwining with the non-human Nature and its constitutive principle of Eros. At the level of education we have to aim at cultivating and deconstructing our possessive relation to Nature. This aim requires a fundamental cultural re-understanding of the basis of desire in human life. Desire is neither only a driving force of economy constructed by daily politics and education nor only a hedonist drive inside us. In fundamental sense of Being desire is an ontological and intersubjective force as Eros towards others and their desire.