ENVS 207: Art, Ecology, Activism (HC) Fall 2024

Here's the true story of how I approached your assignment

(NOTE: Like many of you, I do not have an art background!)

1. I asked the experts I know! 
2. I googled "Indigenous futurism" 
3. I more specfically googled Indigenous futurism and ecology and activism as a "thing"
4. I added in the piece about artwork and other media

Example

I want to see what's out there on Indigenous futurism as it relates to ecology and activism.

Step 1: Break up this research question into two or three main concepts. Ignore extraneous words.

• Concept #1: Indigenous futurism
• Concept #2: ecology
• Concept #3: activism

Step 2: Conduct an initial search with these words, and quickly scan the results. 

Step 3: Using information from your initial search, add synonyms, acronyms, and variant spellings.

• Concept #1: Indigenous futurism, Afrofuturism
• Concept #2: ecology, environment, climate
• Concept #3: activism, protest

The Library of Congress (LC) provides specific words and phrases called Subject Headings--and defines them--to aid in searching.

Here's how LC defines Indigenous futurism

Other potentially helpful subject headings:

Indigenous art North America 21st century

Indigenous art and Futurism

Indigenous comics

Indigenous graphic novels

Try using these to search in various databases for books, articles, images, and other media.

Hint: Once you have the names of some individual artists, you can find images in JSTOR/Artstor.