By Courtney B. Ryan. Routledge, 2024.

In Eco-Performance, Art, and Spatial Justice in the U.S., Courtney B. Ryan traces how urban eco-artists in the U.S. from the 1970s until today contend with environmental domestication and spatial injustice through performance. In theater, art, film, and digital media, the artists featured in this book perform everyday, spatialized micro-acts to contest the mutual containment of urbanites and nonhuman nature. Whether it is plant artist Moe Beitiks taking their ivy out for a jog, photographer Naima Green photographing Black urbanites in lush New York City parks, guerrilla gardeners launching seed bombs into abandoned city lots, or a satirical tweeter parodying BP’s response to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill, the subjects in this book challenge deeply engrained Western directives to domesticate nonhuman nature. In examining how urban eco-artists perform alternate ecologies that celebrate the interconnectedness of marginalized human, vegetal, and aquatic life, Ryan suggests that small environmental performances can expose spatial injustice and increase spatial mobility.

Courtney B. Ryan is an assistant professor of Theater at Lafayette College. Their work on critical plant studies and eco-theater has been featured in Theatre Journal and ISLE.