Aesthetic sustainability: relational understanding in conservation research environments

Abstract Aesthetic experiences are slowly but increasingly gaining attention in the contemporary philosophy of science. However, they remain peripheral in debates about research environments dealing with complex socio-environmental problems. Through a socially engaged and empirically oriented approach, I examine the aesthetic experiences in achievements of understanding in two research environments from the sustainability sciences: the ClimArtLab Evolving Futures Owing Our Mess and the Council of Care . I further the debate by presenting a relational account of aesthetics in scientific understanding, where understanding is a triadic engagement between subject, object and environment mediated by aesthetic experiences.