Aesthetic flux: inquiring into the sensuous dynamics of children, matter and environments with a more-than-human lens

Abstract

Although sensuous and embodied engagement is an integral part of child–environment relationalities, the intersections of aesthetics, children and environments remain scarcely addressed. As a response, this study develops a concept of ‘aesthetic flux’ to delve into the sensuous dynamics of matter and bodies in the context of a storying workshop in a forest with first graders in a Finnish primary school. An arts-based, post-qualitative methodology guided our analysis of video recordings from the workshop, resulting in visual-sonic montages that draw attention to the intense movements and sounds of children, soap bubbles, air, a research camera and trees. Thinking through the concept of aesthetic flux, our study experiments with the abundance, indeterminacy and potentiality of sensuous dynamics where bodies (human and otherwise) become together and linger. Thus, our study reconfigures aesthetics as a creative and unpredictable force that materialises in both embodied and conceptual ways in environmental education and research with children.

Keywords:

• Aesthetic flux
• sensuous dynamics
• environmental education
• more-than-human
• post-qualitative
• child–environment relationalities

Acknowledgements

We offer our warm thanks to the group of children and the teacher who took part in our workshop and in this study.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that this research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as potential conflicts of interest.

Ethics approval statement

This study follows the ethical standards of the Finnish Advisory Board on Research on Integrity (https://www.tenk.fi) and was reviewed and approved by the Education Division of the City of Helsinki (HEL 2019-008574 T 13 02 01). Informed consent was obtained from all participants and the children’s guardians. Pseudonyms were used for all participants.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Maj and Tor Nessling Foundation, grant number 202100303 (Renlund); KONE Foundation, grant number 202008316 (Kumpulainen, Byman, Wong, Renlund) and the Academy of Finland, grant number 339458 (Kumpulainen, Byman, Wong, Renlund).