An arts-led dialogue to elicit shared, plural and cultural values of ecosystems

- Arts-led dialogue offers a critical alternative to deliberative valuation.
- It can explore topics in original and challenging ways leading to new insights.
- It is unlikely to be conceived instrumentally as a means to support decisions.
- It can build capacity of participants with possible emancipatory outcomes.
- Its outcomes are dependent on the artist's character and experience.

This paper introduces arts-led dialogue as a critical alternative to the prevailing instrumental and deliberative approaches to environmental valuation and decision-making. The dialogue, directed by an artist in collaboration with a community of participants, can comprise a single event, such as a workshop, or unfold over a period of years. Rather than seeking closure on a pre-determined problem, its intentions are typically to explore a subject or problem in original, challenging or provocative ways, which question the truth claims of any one discipline, at times with unexpected, emancipatory outcomes. We locate arts-led dialogue between deliberative and interpretive approaches to environmental decision-making, and within the history and theory of socially-engaged art, and analyse its key features: its purpose, participation, audience, format, content, and changes in values and identities through transformative learning. We illustrate these features by reporting on a creative enquiry into the shared, plural and cultural values associated with the Caledonian pinewoods of Scotland, focusing on the Black Wood of Rannoch in Highland Perthshire. The conclusions highlight two distinctive features: a commitment to critical dialogue and open exchange, and the character and experience of the artist who directs the process.