Design Studio 2¶
Updated Design Space
My personal Design Space is a mapping of personal interests and emerging Weak Signals that resonate with my Fight. It is a spectrum divided into 5 parts, not firmly limited, that have a continuous line of thought throughout time:
- Random triggers
- Weak Signals
- State of the Art
- Embracing the Chaos
- Inquisitive and Speculative Exploration
My design space starts with two main cards:
- Imagining Futures that are non-western-centric: It is about welcoming traditional knowledge, fighting for racial equality, decolonizing research, decolonizing ways of thinking, and deliberately opening space for BIPOC voices.
- Inter-species collaboration: It is about welcoming non-human species into our spaces, increasing ecosystem services and biodiversity through co-habitation, Bio Design, and re-inventing symbiotic relationships.
During the AoWS week, I wrote that the synergies for the two cards relied on:
- BIPOC empowerment through nature
- Valorization of traditional ecological knowledge
- Digital fabrication and open-source ecological knowledge
- Turn ecological assessments into design interventions
- Bio Design to increase species diversity
After ¾ months and a lot of research, I found other triggers that combine neocolonization and ecology while still welcoming interspecies collaboration:
1) Eco-apartheid & Ecological Imperialism
“Humans have been separated from nature through what I describe as eco-apartheid. Apartheid means apartness and separation in the Afrikaans language. Eco-apartheid is the belief that humans are separate from nature, acting as her conquerors, masters, and owners. This separation is one of the major drivers of extinction and biodiversity loss.” - Shiva V. (2022, March 10).
For me, eco-apartheid takes on a second dimension: Non-western-centric Futures. The use of the Afrikaan word draws me to think about how the mechanisms that exploit nature are the same societal engines used as colonization tools. In its turn, this led me to the theory of Ecologic Imperialism by Alfred Crosby: “The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900, which proposes that colonization was not only a form of cultural and political tyranny, it was also a form of environmental terrorism. Indeed, Crosby goes so far as to argue that the ecological dimension was in fact primary.”
2) Critical Ecology & Futures Literacy
Colonization was a catalyzer of homogeneity leading to the loss of cultures, traditions, knowledge, etc. It is contra-nature, as Nature invites pluralism and diversity. As Bayo Akomolafe has said, colonization was also about the sterilization of hope, the failure of imagination, and the condensation of the manifold to a single story (Larsen N., 2020). It highlights why Futures Literacy and Critical Ecology are blueprints for the past and future of my interventions:
- Futures Literacy: It is the skill that allows people to better understand the role of the future in what they see and do (UNESCO, n.d). It is the ultimate liberation of the people. It is making constellations of humans and nonhumans to curate a caring future.
- Critical Ecology: “is an area of environmental research illuminating the direct lines between environmental processes and human equality and liberation” (Critical Ecology Lab, n.d.)
These two Weak Signals shine a bright light on accommodating diverse realities that link Interspecies Collaboration and Futures that are non-western-centric.
For the linkage of such topics, I have come across projects that use alternative maps to shift attention away from euro-enlightened, scientific architectures and towards more-than-human infrastructures allowing numerous readings of, for example, a potato. Or, other projects shine a light on the decolonization of Scientific Institutions and spaces, ex. botanical gardens. As we enter the 2nd trimester the perspectives (from Futures Literacy to Ecological Imperialism) continue to appear as strong triggers for design dialogues making their way into new groups and design interventions like Ecofeminism (with Jimena).
I have tracked the evolution of the Design Space and it has a strong (underlining) tacit knowledge that I cannot describe in detail what it is but I know that something very significant is happening. Something that I will only be able to explain in retrospect.