研究者：呂岱如
本文為「藝術如何成為⽣態的盟友？英國與印度草根實例訪查與永續研究」之部分成果內容，由國家文化藝術基金會支持贊助。
Researcher: Esther Lu
This article is a part of the research outcome of the project “How Does Art Become an Ally of Ecology? Field Research and Sustainability Report from the UK and India,” supported by the National Culture and Arts Foundation.
Published date: 1 March, 2026
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「香提尼克坦不僅是一個單純的教育學府，而是一種生活方案。」印度藝術家 K.G. Subramanya (1)
香提尼克坦（Santiniketan）位於印度西孟加拉邦的博爾普爾（Bolpur），加爾各答以北約 180 公里處，是諾貝爾文學獎得主羅賓德拉納德．泰戈爾（Rabindranath Tagore）投注畢生理念於實踐的結晶、一手打造的教育實驗場域。在 1860 年代，泰戈爾的父親、哲學家、宗教改革者迪貝德拉那．泰戈爾（Maharishi Debendranath Tagore）購置這片荒地，重新命名為香提尼克坦（意為和平之國，梵文為寂靜的住所），並以相當前衛創新的建築理念修築區域內的第一棟房子與一所非屬任何特定教派的玻璃屋祈禱室。而在 1901 年，泰戈爾以於大自然環境中修身學習的理念，在此地成立一所實驗學校，更在 1921 年改制為維斯瓦‧巴拉蒂大學 （Visva-Bharati University），成為藝術文化的教育重鎮。「校名『Visva-Bharati』出自古印度《吠陀經》上的一句格言 yatra visvam bhawati ekanidam，意思是全世界在這個鳥巢中相會」(2) 而中文譯名「寂鄉」則是中國文人對香提尼克坦的意譯，徐悲鴻等人亦曾拜訪此地。1937 年，泰戈爾支持譚雲山（Tan Yun Shan）在大學裡創辦中國學院，成為中印交流的橋樑。大學在設立之際，便把革新的全人教育理念平行於生態、城市設計、社群建構上，試圖回應印度在現代化的進程裡，如何於傳統文化藝術、工藝技術、生態環境的交會處，建立一種非西方中心的對話，並融入教育方法之中，廣泛影響印度國內外知識分子對文化及教育的想像，亦促成後稱為情境現代主義（Contextual Modernism）的美學運動 (3)。藉由重新回顧這個百年前獨樹一格的教育模型，本文嘗試將香提尼克坦的案例作為當今藝術教育方法的參照座標，思考藝術教育是否可能超越專業化技術的演練、再現的思維、形式主義和國族疆界，繞道西方中心的思維方法，而轉向朝以生態女性主義與酷兒生態主義為啟發的教育方法，實踐與生態長期共調的學習關係。
近年來，回應氣候危機、環境破壞、地方性議題和關係美學的各種生態藝術計畫持續湧現，藝術家也常以各種跨學科、跨領域的研究方法和合作來拓展創作與實踐的可能。於此同時，如何將環境思考內化為藝術教育自身的方法論，使其成為藝術學習和研究內涵，卻尚未獲得相應的關注。筆者近期造訪香提尼克坦時，適逢參觀該校一年一度的藝術節 Nandan Mela，看到師生創作的展演作品、美術系所（Kala Bhavan）的設施、校園內著名的現代雕塑作品；同時，也見到小學部孩童拎著自己的小地毯，穿梭校園草地上學習梵文與各項科目，還有幸參與一場由傳統民俗表演藝術家所帶領的工作坊等，切身觀察到從泰戈爾創校以來「每棵樹都是教室」的實驗與傳統——讓環境作為學習之所，關注感官的開發、與環境的連結，鼓勵自由探索與生成式互動學習。讓我不禁反思如何將此歷史悠久而豐富的治學遺產，轉化成當代生態藝術教育探照鏡，重新思考生態－藝術在教育上的聯繫。印度環保行動者、作家范達娜．席娃（Vandana Shiva）曾在她的著作《生存之道：女性、生態與發展》論道，「生態知識是既非抽象或具有普世性的，而是從身處特定環境中具體的實踐經驗、維護關係而來 」(4)，也深刻回應了泰戈爾當年的所擘劃的願景。本文將以香提尼克坦為歷史案例，進一步探討其對當代生態藝術教育所能開啟的思考向度。
香提尼克坦的教育理念
香提尼克坦是從荒地中一點一滴建造而起的，也因此其原有的自然地貌、優雅寧靜的環境成為修建教育機構的絕大優勢。在泰戈爾父親初期的擘劃理想下，該地原本預計作為一個靜修之所，用以冥想、內省、與精神成長。而後，泰戈爾投入他個人長年的社會理想與實踐力量建校，用他自己的話來說，「香提尼克坦是一座人們與自然和諧共同生活與工作的大學城。」(5) 這指涉了這位博學家對現代化的全方位省思、政治與教育理念，包含對自然環境的尊重與嚮往，延伸至對印度與世界各地不同文化傳統的重視、他在英國求學期間的學習與對殖民文化的反思、他在印度農業現代化改革與農村建設的實際參與和實驗，還有他如何思考知識價值與文化連結的理念等。在當年的規劃之下，這座大學城和周遭的自然環境、民俗工藝、農村生活等活動都是相互連結的，也反映在空間及建築設計規劃上。
追溯香提尼克坦的歷史，從一幢精美典雅而不帶有特定宗教象徵符號、以鑄鐵與玻璃建造的透明玻璃屋靜修處開始，歡迎各種背景與階級的人於此匯聚。這個起點即展開一種劃時代的想像，標示著民主、開放與包容的教育想像。泰戈爾在這片貧瘠的紅土上修建學校之際，挪借吠陀傳統——在隱世之處的森林裡與導師一起生活與學習的親密環境，以建構一所森林學校來抗衡當時殖民時期維多利亞教育系統制度。學校亦被泰戈爾視為改善農村環境、賦權底層人民的工具，也因此讓學生與在地居民（包括原住民、低種姓村民）以及來自各地的進駐學者，透過共同生活、相互學習，是原始的規劃設計之一。
然而這片荒地原本並沒有森林，也因此，學校的修建啟動了與在地社群的共生關係：大家一起植樹造林，學生從當地居民、原住民身上習得使用在地素材、和建築的技能蓋起泥屋，共同打造當地地景、蓋起學校、牧場。而學校與原本的聚落也沒有距離，僅有標示進出不同校區的象徵性閘口，而無任何圍牆或管制，讓校園的生活與村內的生活穿透性地疊置，彼此參與。泰戈爾的終極希望是香提尼克坦成為真正的社群與地方學校，讓在地的村民能夠透過教育和學習的力量，以現代資源來改變地方的物質、知識與經濟環境與生活。而這樣的想像也在建校的過程裡，一步步被推動，首先是 1901 年創校之始的實驗基礎教育，後來開始設計更多村民能夠參與的工藝培訓介面，例如讓他們到學校的工作室裡學習製作傢俱、木工、園藝等技能性專業，加入更多學術性的內容。 1919 年美術系（Kala Bhavan）成立，1922 年在鄰近的斯里尼凱坦（Sriniketan）創立鄉鎮再造系所（Palli-Samgathana Vibhaga），致力改善與建設農村，學習地方的問題、收集在地田野資料與甚至到後來開始推動合作社的建立等。在泰戈爾的擘劃中，藝術與農業是並肩而行的社會改革力量，是這座學校的核心內容，也唯有如此藝術能夠有進入生活的依據，而農業能夠作為文化生產的根基。
校園內多孔隙性的空間不僅反映在建築體的佈局上，也反映在教學方法上的空間邏輯。在香提尼克坦，無牆教室的概念深植於學校傳統，這不僅是把自然視為背景，而是師法自然作爲感知與洞察力的養成條件，也把自然作為學習的對象。在戶外上課的傳統，強調共同分享與探索，在參與式的情境、在各種特定場域裡，讓學生向外在環境、生命、宇宙萬物親近，更切身而實際地去審視自身與世界的對話與依存關係，也在非權威性的教育方法下，遠離單一觀點和視角，游移在參與者／組織者／表演者／觀看者的角色裡成為創造性的學習主體。而在日常生活中展開學習，也是全人教育理念的重要環節，培養心靈、身體、精神的共同成長。
在這個邏輯之上，學生被鼓勵感知自然環境的動態、季節的變換、農業活動的節律，而村民的各種民俗傳統文化、儀式與節慶，也同樣滲透到學習的互動與內容裡，甚至化作重要的教育方法學。我們可以從一些從創校之始便維持至今的傳統來窺見這個獨特的社群關係。泰戈爾將集體探索行走，作為香提尼克坦的一項社群活動，一種集體連結與探索身體的工具。在印度，集體吟遊的傳統有不同的長遠歷史根源，然而在此，他將之改編一種屬於香提尼克坦的社會文化慶祝活動，甚至為此作歌譜曲，使其成為香提尼克坦獨特的文化形式：
天空滿是日月星辰
宇宙生命滿盈
我在其中尋覓一處
在驚奇讚嘆中高歌
永恆的浪潮
推動世界搖曳
起起落落
血液被拉扯著
在我的血管裡競速
我在驚奇讚嘆中高歌（6）
香提尼克坦目前每年都有植樹節，全校師生以及附近的居民共同參與，在天未亮的清晨舉著燭光，一起繞著校區行走、唱歌、跳舞，參與植樹的儀式，最終一起野餐聚會。而定期走路參訪附近的鄉鎮、觀賞風景，觀察人民與自然環境也一直都是中小學部門（Patha Bhavana）與美術系的傳統。在這樣的傳統裡，我們可以看到學習與地貌的創造、彼此的連結、共同的探索活動緊緊交織。這樣的漫遊也同時抵抗著生產取向的教育，轉向一種生命力的充實與修復。而類似的集體活動還包括每年慶祝不同季節的儀式，如迎春、迎雨等等，這些回應時令、向非人類學習的時刻將每個人的身體記憶與地方檔案揉成一體，成為真正的一起代謝的共生社群網絡。
誠如現任 Kala Bhavan 美術系副教授 Sanchayan Ghosh 在《Circl(e)ing Inside Out: Tools for Pedagogy as Art Practice》一文所論，「教學法成為一種行動，將個體性消解於多層式的批判性參與之中，並置身於多樣化、對話性的創作與分享情境。而集體的概念在此則被視為多元聲音的交會，生成諸多臨時社群。而在此，社群並非是一個被邊緣化的概念，而是人們與特定場域的暫時性聚會。」（7）在該論述中，我們可以閱讀到，這些延續性的傳統演化之今，依舊是香提尼克坦的特殊教育文化，並且有著更多後繼的細緻詮釋與發展。
隨著泰戈爾個人早年留學英國與在孟加拉的家族農村土地上工作的親身觀察與體悟，一直到獲得諾貝爾文學獎的成就以及在國際間的見學遊歷，他以獨到的方式融會貫通各種所感所學的文化內容與知識，反省傳統文化與壓迫，也同時省思帝國主義與殖民歷史帶來的傷痕，這些經驗與作為成就了他獨樹一格的現代性定義，作為一位真正的現代主義者。在二十世紀初期的現代化進程裡，將理想導入到香提尼克坦的教育學發展之中，作為地方創生的實驗模型。
學校的設立是一個打破社會藩籬與不公平的重要工具，包括宗教、階級以及性別上的歧視都在此失效。從建校之始，女性便在校園裡佔有一席之地。我們也在建校的歷程裡，觀察到與在地社群共同學習與生活的精神是如何落實在校園的硬體建設，還有當地鄰近牧場、農地與鄉鎮再造系、農業科學系之間的合作以及與整座大學城的共生經濟體。而原本向當地原住民學習傳統技藝、培育在地工匠、串連在地工藝師網絡等的努力，也被比喻為印度版本的包浩斯運動 (8)，讓工藝、設計、藝術有了共享與交流的教育平台。泰戈爾認為藝術不應該只是單純向西方學習技法與美學傳統，也不應該是停留在工作室中，臨摹印度神話、歷史圖像，而是走入生活與自然的環境裡，獲得與在地傳統視覺文化的連結，泯除藝術與工藝的界線，在個人表達以外，也能夠設計兼顧實用與溝通的物件，像是舞台與戲服設計、織品與家飾設計、壁畫與戶外雕塑等，而美術系的首屆系主任藝術家 Nandalal Bose 也分享其信念，並設計了許多教學法。時至今日，香提尼克坦作為印度國內重要的工藝發展傳承重鎮，依舊吸引了各地前來學習與採購的人潮。
在這些革新性操作以外，泰戈爾還有個人對於傳統文化特殊的尊重與跨文化融合的追求。過去的歷史對他而言，並非全然落後與不可取，而是可以擷取與再活用的元素。而跨文化的交流則是讓人認識世界的方式，豐富的遊歷作為他的學習實踐方法之一，讓他的眼界與心靈不受政治疆界的羈絆。他提倡泛亞洲主義，鼓勵彼此學習和恢復自古以來區域間的文明對話，也作為區域間共同面對現代化、省思科學與傳統價值衝突與文化的路徑。在校園裡，可見帶有日式風情的建築造景、中國學院鼓勵學習中文與中國文化與藝術、印尼蠟染特殊技法的導入、東南亞區域歷史古蹟的臨摹圖稿……這些經年月累的跨文化建樹讓他成為一個「宇宙主義的在地人士」（9），也讓我們理解泰戈爾的現代性，是建立在其徹底清醒的自由精神之上，而這是始於對歷史的透徹理解、對文化的熱愛與尊重，而非對於科學的單向追求、或是對國族主義的執著裡。也因此，筆者認為泰戈爾所追求的現代性絕非專屬特定地方，反而座落在可移動的疆界之上。與其說他催生了香提尼克坦的情境現代主義，不如說他促使現代性成為諸眾的對話，讓我們到今日都還能夠跨越時間地理參與其中的思辨與演進。
當代生態藝術教育方法學的啟動
歸納上述香提尼克坦的藝術教育方法，我們可以觀察到其中的生態關係、物質網絡、知識論的基礎都有別於傳統學制中以專科知識殿堂、研究與技術權威、著重個體的學術成績、學習獨立在生活經驗以外的制度，而是讓環境感知先行，觀察自然節律與周遭文化，以社群的建立與地方的豐饒作為集體目標來讓教育成為創造與跨越的橋樑，成為一種生活方式。這些內蘊的精神與當今許多生態女性主義者所提出的想法不謀而合：教育方法的核心放在關懷的理解與集體實踐而非單向的表述及生產之上；藝術教育也在於生態關係的建構與重構之上；真正的知識是經由與特定地方與環境連動而來的。而泰戈爾在香提尼克坦所打造的更是一種流動的、無法被輕易歸類的空間，打破了許多二元對立的疆界與各種文化、宗教、階級、性別的社會規範，可被比擬為酷兒生態理念的實踐先驅——拒絕固定分類、去中心化人類尺度、並納許多重親屬關係共存。
在此思維軸線上，回應環境、向非人類學習的當代範例越來越多，我們亦可在各種反思人類世的實踐者身上，見到不同程度的共鳴以及更多跨領域的研究結合與探索，於生物學、環境科學、人類學、後殖民論述、性別理論、原住民文化研究、社區再造等領域之間展開了各種光譜的跨度。我們可從梅林．謝德瑞克的《真菌微宇宙：看生態煉金師如何驅動世界、推展生命，連結地球萬物》（10）與雅絲敏．伍斯朵－羅里蓋茲的 《一起變成菇》（11）書中看到到他們如何透過真菌來觀察世界，重新學習生活。而羅賓．沃爾．基默爾的《三千分之一的森林：透過苔蘚的故事，我們得以重新理解這個世界》為我們配置苔蘚的視角（12）。亞歷克西斯．波琳．甘布斯的書 《未淹沒：來自海洋哺乳動物的黑色女性主義教誨》將我們拉到深海中，向鯨群學習傾聽、合作、拒絕等解構殖民與父權的策略（13）。而瑪莉索．得拉．卡德納的《地物》則是引我們去理解在人類與非人類的複雜關係間，去探索社會－自然領域中更具精神性意義的向度（14）而我們從這些作者的研究與省思之間，觀察到他們是如何將自身置於特定環境脈絡中，去啟動各種超越人類語言與感知模式的學習姿態。而有趣的是在此類跨物種、跨學科的研究與實踐中，藝術家有絕對的潛能與優勢成為之間的關鍵媒介角色，以提出新的感知形式和溝通語言來對接與轉譯這些複雜的知識網絡系譜，甚至開啟了更多元學習模式與方案。在印度阿薩姆邦有藝術團體 Anga Art Collective 的 kNow School 計畫、在印尼雅加達的藝術團體 ruangrupa 的 gudskul 都用更開放的方式去實驗與探索藝術教育的可能。
今日，在氣候危機、環境壓力倍增的後全球化時代，藝術教育者要如何調整目標與腳步，才能夠理解地方、提出切合的方案參與生態關係的養護共生，可能比一個世紀之前思考這個問題還更具挑戰。現今的挑戰已無關修復完整，而是在破敗急退的現實碎片裡，協調跨物種的共生與代謝，不慕強而思弱，不直接陷入解決問題的急迫感或是社會意識形態的批判中，尋求各種共存技術，或許才是我們培養感知與情感能力，不被氣候及資訊淹沒的重要關鍵。
而寂鄉所啟示的，或許還有與其專注於培養藝術家的職能化教育，不如擴大思考如何把藝術教育演化成生態藝術教育，作為全人教育的必要一環，可在各種年齡、背景、場域、環境中，促使不同的社群以更具有生態意識、文化省思、藝術的創造與想像力，一起與泥土、真菌、鯨魚、大象交纏共成。藝術教育必須演化為一種持續性的生活方式與日常行為，在不斷變動的地理中，尋找群體協調生存空間的文化韌性。這或許才是泰戈爾留給我們最激進的禮物：在這個崩解的人類世，藝術是我們維持這個多物種鳥巢不墜的、最溫柔的黏合劑。
(1) 英文原文：“Santiniketan is not a mere educational institution, it is a way of life.” – K.G. Subramanyan. https://www.santiniketan.com/culture/shantiniketan-quotes/
(2) 譚中. 譚雲山 中央編譯出版社. 10 October 2012: 20–.: p20-21
(3) Kumar, R. Siva. Santiniketan: The Making of a Contextual Modernism. New Delhi: National Gallery of Modern Art, 1997.
(4) Shiva, Vandana. 1988. Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development. London: Zed Books.
(5) 英文原文：“Santiniketan is a university town where people live and work together in harmony with nature.” https://www.santiniketan.com/culture/shantiniketan-quotes/
(6) 本文作者自行翻譯泰戈爾所創作《Akash Bhara Surya Tara》這首歌之部分歌詞。
(7) Ghosh, Sanchayan. “Circl(e)ing Inside Out: Tools for Pedagogy as Art Practice.” Ed. KUNCI Study Forum and Collective, Tools for Radical Study: A Collection of Manuals. March, 2021.
(8) R. Siva Kumar, “LIKE A FEVER Shantiniketan: A World University,” The Bauhaus in Calcutta: An Encounter of the Cosmopolitan Avant-Garde. Hatje Cantz, 2013.
(9) 同上。英文原文“Modernism for him was not about looking alike; it was about freedom of mind, freedom from insular histories that dehumanise others and limit our possibilities. He was working towards a ‘cosmopolitan local.’”
(10) Sheldrake, Merlin. Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. Random House, 2020.
(11) Ostendorf-Rodríguez, Yasmine. Let’s Become Fungal! Mycelial Learning and the Arts. Valiz, 2023.
(12) Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. Oregon State University Press, 2003.
(13) Gumbs, Alexis Pauline. Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals. AK Press, 2020.
(14) De La Cadena, Marisol. Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice Across Andean Worlds. Duke University Press, 2015.
“Santiniketan is not a mere educational institution, it is a way of life.” — K.G. Subramanyan (1)
Santiniketan is located in Bolpur, West Bengal, India, approximately 180 kilometers north of Kolkata. It is the realization of Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s lifelong ideals—a site for educational experimentation built with his own hands. In the 1860s, Tagore’s father, the philosopher and religious reformer Maharishi Debendranath Tagore, acquired this barren land and renamed it Santiniketan (meaning "Abode of Peace" in Sanskrit). With forward-thinking architectural vision, he constructed the first house in the area and a non-denominational glass prayer hall. In 1901, Tagore established an experimental school at Santiniketan, grounded in the belief that learning should take place through self-cultivation within nature. In 1921, the institution was formally reconstituted as Visva-Bharati University, which gradually became a major center for artistic and cultural education in India. “The name ‘Visva-Bharati’ is derived from a Vedic aphorism: yatra visvam bhawati ekanidam, meaning ‘where the world meets in one nest’” (2). The Chinese name Ji Xiang (Silent Village) is an idiomatic translation by Chinese literati; figures such as Xu Beihong once visited Santiniketan. In 1937, with Tagore’s support, Tan Yun Shan founded Cheena Bhavana (China Institute) within the university, serving as a bridge for Sino-Indian exchange. From its inception, Visva-Bharati positioned its vision of holistic education alongside considerations of ecology, spatial planning, and community-building. It sought to reconfigure the relationship between education, art, craft, and the natural environment within India’s process of modernization. This integrated approach profoundly shaped intellectual imaginations within and beyond India and contributed to what art historian R. Siva Kumar later conceptualized as “contextual modernism.”(3) By revisiting this distinctive pedagogical model developed over a century ago, this article proposes Santiniketan as a critical reference point for rethinking contemporary art education—one that moves beyond technical specialization, formalism, and national boundaries, and instead adopts pathways inspired by eco-feminism and queer ecology, foregrounding long-term ecological attunement, relationality, care, and cohabitation.
In recent years, ecological art practices addressing climate crisis, environmental degradation, site-specific concerns, and relational aesthetics have proliferated. Artists increasingly employ interdisciplinary research methods and collaborative frameworks to explore new forms of practice. Yet comparatively little attention has been paid to how ecological thinking might be embedded within the methodologies of art education itself. During my recent visit to Santiniketan, I attended the annual art festival Nandan Mela, where I saw works by faculty and students, the facilities of the Art Department (Kala Bhavana), and famous modern sculptures on campus. I also observed primary school children carrying their small rugs, wandering across the grass to learn Sanskrit and other subjects, and had the privilege of participating in a workshop led by traditional folk performers. I witnessed firsthand the tradition of "Every Tree Is A Classroom"—a legacy of Tagore's experimentation where the environment serves as the site of learning, focusing on sensory development, connection to the surroundings, and encouraging free exploration and generative interactive learning. This experience led me to reflect on how to transform this rich heritage into a lens for contemporary eco-art education. Indian environmental activist and author Vandana Shiva argued in Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development that “ecological knowledge is neither abstract nor universal, but emerges from concrete practical experience and the maintenance of relationships within a specific environment” (4)—a sentiment that deeply resonates with Tagore’s original vision. By examining Santiniketan’s pedagogical foundations, this article explores how its historical example may inform expanded approaches to eco-art education today.
The Educational Philosophy of Santiniketan
Santiniketan was built bit by bit from barren land; thus, its original natural topography and tranquil atmosphere became the greatest assets for building an educational institution. Under his father’s initial vision, the site was intended as a hermitage (Ashram) for meditation, introspection, and spiritual growth. Later, Tagore channeled his long-term social ideals and practical energy into building the school. In his words: “Santiniketan is a university town where people live and work together in harmony with nature” (5). This vision reflects Tagore’s comprehensive engagement with modernity, encompassing political thought, educational reform, respect for nature, sensitivity to diverse cultural traditions, critical reflections on colonialism shaped by his studies in England, and sustained experimentation in agricultural modernization in rural India.
Under this vision, the university was conceived as inseparable from its surrounding environment, local crafts, and rural reconstruction initiatives—an integration that was materially expressed through campus planning and architectural design. Education at Santiniketan was never confined to classrooms; it was embedded in everyday life, landscape, and social relations.
Tracing the history of Santiniketan, it began with an elegant glass prayer hall built of cast iron and glass—devoid of specific religious symbols—welcoming people of all backgrounds and castes. This starting point launched an epoch-making imagination, setting a precedent for democratic, open, and inclusive education. When Tagore built the school on this barren red soil, he borrowed from the Vedic tradition of the Ashram—an intimate environment where one lived and learned with a mentor in the forest—to construct a "forest school" that countered the Victorian educational system of the colonial period. Tagore also viewed the school as a tool for improving rural environments and empowering marginalized people; thus, the original design included students living and learning alongside local residents (including indigenous groups and lower-caste villagers) and visiting scholars.
Since the land originally lacked forests, the construction of the school initiated a symbiotic relationship with the local community: they planted trees collectively. Students learned how to use local materials and construction techniques from residents and indigenous people to build mud houses (Shyamali), co-creating the landscape, the school, and the pastures. There was no distance between the school and the original settlements; only symbolic gates marked the transition between campus areas, with no walls or fences. This allowed campus life and village life to overlap with porous transparency. Tagore envisioned Santiniketan as a genuinely local institution, one in which education would empower villagers to transform their material, cultural, and economic conditions. This vision was pushed forward step-by-step: first through experimental basic education in 1901, and later through craft training interfaces for villagers—such as woodworking, furniture making, and gardening studios—while incorporating more academic content. Kala Bhavana (Art Department) was established in 1919, followed by the Department of Rural Reconstruction (Palli-Samgathana Vibhaga) in nearby Sriniketan in 1922. The latter focused on rural improvement, studying local problems, collecting field data, and eventually promoting cooperatives. In Tagore’s blueprint, art and agriculture were side-by-side forces for social reform; only thus could art find its grounding in life, and agriculture serve as the foundation of cultural production.
The porous spatial organization of Santiniketan was mirrored in its pedagogical methods. Open-air classrooms were not merely aesthetic choices but reflected a belief that nature itself cultivates perception and insight. Outdoor teaching emphasized shared exploration and participatory learning, positioning students as creative agents who moved fluidly between the roles of participant, organizer, performer, and observer. Learning extended into daily life, nurturing the integrated growth of mind, body, and spirit.
Within this logic, students are encouraged to perceive the dynamics of the natural environment, seasonal shifts, and the rhythms of agricultural activities. Folk traditions, rituals, and festivals are woven into the interaction and content of learning, becoming vital pedagogical methodologies. Tagore transformed collective walking and exploration into a social activity—a tool for community bonding and somatic discovery. While the tradition of collective wandering (Parikrama) has long roots in India, Tagore adapted it into a socio-cultural celebration unique to Santiniketan, even composing songs for it:
The sky is full of the sun and the stars
The universe is full of life
In the midst of it I have found my place, and my wonder rises in song.
The tide of eternity pushes the world to sway, rising and falling,
Blood is pulled, racing through my veins,
And my wonder rises in song. (6)
To this day, Santiniketan holds an annual Vriksharopana (Tree Planting Festival). Faculty, students, and residents gather in the pre-dawn candlelight to walk, sing, and dance through the campus, participating in planting rituals followed by communal picnics. Regular walks to nearby villages to observe the people and environment remain a tradition for both the primary school (Patha Bhavana) and the art department. In these traditions, we see learning intertwined with the creation of the landscape and collective exploration. Such wandering also resists production-oriented education, turning instead toward the replenishment and repair of vitality. Similar collective activities include rituals for the seasons—welcoming the spring, welcoming the rain—where moments of learning from the non-human fuse bodily memory with local archives, forming a truly metabolic symbiotic community.
As Sanchayan Ghosh, Associate Professor at Kala Bhavana, argues in Circl(e)ing Inside Out: Tools for Pedagogy as Art Practice: “Pedagogy in this respect becomes an initiative to disperse individuality into a multilayered critical engagement of multiple dialogical situations of making and sharing. The notion of the collective is addressed as a convergence of voices to generate multiple temporary communities Here, community is not a marginal entity but a cross section of meeting temporarily in a specific site.” (7). We can see how these continuous traditions have evolved into the unique educational culture of Santiniketan, with further nuanced interpretations today.
Tagore’s understanding of modernity was shaped by his experiences studying in England, working in rural Bengal, and engaging globally as a Nobel laureate and public intellectual. He reflected on traditional culture and oppression while pondering the scars of imperialism and colonial history. These experiences shaped his unique definition of modernity—he was a true modernist. In the early 20th century, he translated these ideals into the pedagogical development of Santiniketan as an experimental model for "local making" (place-making).
The establishment of the school was a tool to break social barriers and inequalities, rendering discriminations based on religion, caste, and gender invalid. From the beginning, women held a place on campus. The spirit of learning and living with the local community was realized in the physical campus infrastructure, the cooperation between nearby pastures, farmlands, and the departments of rural reconstruction and agricultural sciences, and the symbiotic economy of the university town. The effort to learn traditional skills from indigenous people and nurture local artisans was likened to an "Indian Bauhaus" (8), providing a shared platform for craft, design, and art. Tagore believed art should not merely mimic Western techniques or be confined to studios illustrating myths and historical imageries; it should enter life and nature to connect with local visual culture, blurring the lines between art and craft. The first director of Kala Bhavana, Nandalal Bose, shared this belief, designing pedagogies that included stage and costume design, textiles, murals, and outdoor sculptures. Today, Santiniketan remains a major center for craft heritage in India.
Beyond these innovative operations, Tagore held a special respect for traditional culture and a pursuit of cross-cultural fusion. History, for him, was not something to be discarded as fixed, but a source of elements to be reclaimed and revitalized. Cross-cultural exchange was a way to know the world; extensive travel was his method of learning, ensuring his mind was not bound by political borders. He advocated for Pan-Asianism, encouraging regional civilizational dialogue to face modernization and reflect on the conflicts between science, traditional values, and culture. On campus, one finds Japanese-style landscapes, Cheena Bhavana’s Chinese cultural studies, the introduction of Indonesian Batik techniques, and sketches of Southeast Asian historical monuments and so on. These cumulative efforts made him a “Cosmopolitan Local” (9). Tagore’s modernity was built upon a thoroughly awake spirit of freedom—rooted in a profound understanding of history and a love for culture, rather than nationalism or technocratic progress. Therefore, Tagore’s modernity does not belong to a specific place but resides upon movable boundaries. Rather than saying he catalyzed "Contextual Modernism," it is more accurate to say he prompted modernity to become a "dialogue of the multitude," allowing us to participate in its evolution across time and geography.
Activating Contemporary Eco-Art Pedagogies
Summarizing Santiniketan’s methods, we see that its ecological relations, material networks, and epistemological foundations differ from conventional academic systems oriented toward specialization, technical authority, individual achievement, and learning isolated from life. Instead, it prioritizes environmental attunement, observing natural rhythms and local culture, and setting community building and local abundance as collective goals—making education a bridge for creation and transgression, a way of life. These inherent spirits closely align with contemporary eco-feminist perspectives that prioritize care, relationality, and collective practice over extractive production and unilateral expression; art education should be centered on the construction and reconstruction of ecological relations; true knowledge stems from concrete experience and maintained relationships within a specific environment. Santiniketan may thus be understood as an early articulation of what might now be called queer ecology—not in terms of identity, but as a refusal of fixed classifications, a decentering of the human, and an embrace of multiple modes of kinship. Its pedagogical space remains fluid, resisting categorization while dismantling binary divisions between nature and culture, art and life, center and margin.
Contemporary practitioners responding to the Anthropocene increasingly adopt similar orientations. We see echoes in practitioners reflecting on the Anthropocene across the spectrums of biology, environmental science, anthropology, post-colonial discourse, gender theory, indigenous studies, and community reconstruction. Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life (10) and Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez’s Let’s Become Fungal! (11) show us how to observe the world through fungi and relearn how to live. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Gathering Moss provides us with the perspective of moss (12). Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals pulls us into the deep sea to learn from whale pods about listening, cooperation, and refusal as strategies to deconstruct colonialism and patriarchy (13). Marisol de la Cadena’s Earth Beings leads us to understand the spiritual dimensions within complex human/non-human relations (14). These authors initiate learning postures that transcend human language and perception. Interestingly, in these trans-species and transdisciplinary practices, artists have the potential to act as key mediators, proposing new forms of perception and communication to bridge these complex knowledge networks. Initiatives such as Anga Art Collective’s kNow School in Assam and ruangrupa’s gudskul in Jakarta further demonstrate how art education can be reimagined as an open, ecological process.
In a time of accelerating environmental crisis, the challenge for art education is not simply to respond to problems, but to cultivate capacities for coexistence, care, and collective endurance within damaged worlds. The challenge is no longer about "restoring to wholeness," but about coordinating cross-species symbiosis and metabolism within the fragments of a retreating reality. We must "think weak" rather than "admire strength," avoiding the trap of pure "solutionism" or ideological critique. Seeking technologies of coexistence is the key to cultivating the sensorial and affective capacity to remain "un-drowned" by climate and information overload.
What Santiniketan reveals is that rather than focusing on vocational education for artists, we should expand our thinking toward Eco-Art Education as a necessary part of holistic education. This allows diverse communities—across ages and backgrounds—to use ecological consciousness, cultural reflection, and artistic imagination to become entangled with the soil, fungi, whales, and elephants. Art education must evolve into a continuous way of life and daily behavior, seeking the cultural resilience of collective survival within a shifting geography. This is perhaps Tagore’s most radical gift: in this crumbling Anthropocene, art is the tender adhesive that keeps our multispecies nest from falling.
(1) K.G. Subramanyan. Source
(2) Tan Chung, Tan Yun Shan, Central Compilation & Translation Press, 2012, p. 20-21.
(3) R. Siva Kumar, Santiniketan: The Making of a Contextual Modernism, National Gallery of Modern Art, 1997.
(4) Vandana Shiva, Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development, Zed Books, 1988.
(5) Rabindranath Tagore. Source
(6) Author’s translation of lyrics from Tagore’s song Akash Bhara Surya Tara.
(7) Sanchayan Ghosh, “Circl(e)ing Inside Out: Tools for Pedagogy as Art Practice,” in Tools for Radical Study, KUNCI, 2021.
(8) R. Siva Kumar, “Like A Fever Santiniketan: A World University,” in The Bauhaus in Calcutta, Hatje Cantz, 2013.
(9) Ibid. (10) Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life, Random House, 2020.
(11) Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez, Let’s Become Fungal!, Valiz, 2023.
(12) Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, Oregon State University Press, 2003.
(13) Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Undrowned, AK Press, 2020.
(14) Marisol de la Cadena, Earth Beings, Duke University Press, 2015.
