Art-Based Perceptual Ecology

​research methodologies

Dr. Lee Ann Woolery is a transdisciplinary researcher, scholar, educator, and a practicing artist of over 30 years. With a focus on divergent ways of knowing, she pioneered Art-Based Perceptual Ecology (ABPE), an integrative research approach to studying changes in ecological systems. 

"In the practice of Art-Based Perceptual Ecology, the image, like metaphor, provides a breakthrough into a dimension of intelligibility previously inaccessible, offering a new language, a new understanding of the phenomenon being studied. The job of the image is to fix the place in time and space. The image created in this intentional art making practice represents one moment in the evolutionary history of the land, representing time frozen on the journal page - much like fossils found in rocks, or tree rings or tracks in the snow."

"The image created by the researcher using the ABPE methods becomes a graphic record of the intelligence of one's body in relationship to place, an embodiment of the knowledge held within this one landscape. Knowledge held within the landscape can be understood by considering biology, which is the science of life and living organisms. Biology defines the life process of organisms as it involves growth of a point in space. If we recognize a point as a record of or the static result of dynamic equilibrium, then we know multiple points become patterns. Patterns are the tangible record of interactions between and amongst organisms in the landscape."

"Making images when engaged in Art-Based Perceptual Ecology protocols brings one to an awareness of the patterns found at multiple scales in the landscape. The land's patterns, known as the codes of the land's communication system, when revealed, yield the language or vernacular of place. The ability to read the patterns provides one with clues to the evolutionary history of the landscape." (Woolery, L.A. 1998)

Read about Art-Based Perceptual Ecology in my article "Knowing the language of place through the arts" located on the Johns Hopkins University website or send your request for this article to me with your contact information in the contact form HERE. 

In my next image, I focus on form and shape, color and line; primary design elements found in nature. In this oil pastel painting, you begin to see how ABPE offers a language that codifies my embodied experience.

© 2024 Citizen Artist

Continuing the ABPE protocol, in this watercolor at the same site, I continue to explore a mixed media approach. In this visual narrative you see how the arts act as a language translator and make possible the information exchange necessary to communicate the place-based stories of this landscape. 

* All artwork and photos on this page copyright L.A. Woolery.

Engaged in the ABPE methods, in this simple pencil drawing depicting the ledge above the tributary, little shows of my phenomenological exploration of place.