Sensing otherwise: From Multispecies Empathy to Entanglement through Art

Abstract

Can we ever truly empathise with another? Is it genuinely possible to step into another being’s shoes without reducing their lives to a projection of our own? Taking these questions as a point of departure, this thesis challenges the conventional concept of empathy as solely a human ability. Instead, it reframes empathy as an entangled and relational, co-constitutive mode of being that includes both humans and non-humans. The junction of art, ecology and education is establishing itself as a fertile ground for reimagining human-nonhuman relationships, in the face of ecological collapse driven by extractivist worldviews. The damage to this web of life continues to accelerate, like an endless cascade of falling dominoes. Education as a site for future making holds transformative potential to shift away from an exploitative, profit-driven mindset to more ethical and responsible modes of co-existence. This thesis offers a modest contribution to this evolving field by using art and empathy as a compass to navigate multispecies entanglements. Building on the Multispecies postcard project, developed during the third semester internship at an innovation agency, this research critiques the initial design’s tendency to reimpose anthropocentric hierarchies. The initial design invited participants to write from a non-human species’ perspective to humans, but the responses often remained superficial, and guilt driven. This prompted a deeper inquiry: can empathy, conventionally understood as stepping into another’s shoes: truly enable meaningful multispecies connection? Or should the meaning of empathy be redefined? Using a design-based research (DBR) approach, this study uses iterative cycles of design, testing, analysis and reflection. It builds on interviews and feedback from art educators of grades 4-6 in Denmark and Pakistan and stands on the theoretical frameworks integrating posthumanism, critiques of Anthropocene and affective multimodal approaches in art education. The findings suggest that while the redesigned tool has potential to ignite multisensory awareness, relational thinking and multispecies awareness, its effectiveness depends on further testing with both teachers and students, and be more attuned to ethical, cultural and logistical contexts. Instead of a universally adaptable tool, this research proposes flexible provocative design principles (speculative fabulation, art of noticing, collaboration and multimodality) to guide future multispecies educational interventions. Ultimately, this thesis does not offer a prescriptive method but extends an open invitation to compost rigid curricula towards attending to messy, generative work of learning with the more than human, enabling new, situated modes of “worlding”.

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A master programme thesis from Aalborg University

Sensing otherwise: From Multispecies Empathy to Entanglement through Art