A central theme of this book concerns slowness instead of acceleration. This is approached through art and design practices that unfold this multiplicity of time, closely entwined with contemporary concerns in aesthetic theory, to understand and engage with the planetary time scales of slow environmental violence.

By engaging artists’ widespread aesthetic and political engagement with environmental conditions and processes around the globe—looking at cutting-edge theoretical, political, and cultural developments in the Global South and North—Decolonizing Nature offers a significant and original contribution to the intersecting fields of art history, ecology, visual culture, geography, and environmental politics.

The exhibition “The Whole Earth” is an essay composed of cultural-historical materials and artistic positions that critically address the rise of the image of “One Earth” and the ecological paradigm associated with it. The accompanying publication includes image-rich visual essays that explore key themes: “Universalism,” “Whole Systems,” “Boundless Interior,” and “Apocalypse, Babylon, Simulation,” among others.

An experiment with alternative forms of design, Public Design Support is also an intervention in urban life. This publication—which includes key project materials, scholarly essays, and significant historical texts—chronicles the aspirations, methods, and projects of the first four years of Public Design Support.