- Prof. Phil Stevenson, Kew Garden, UK
- Klewetua, Rodney Sayers, Hupacasath artist from Ahswinis, Port Alberni, CAN
- Emily Luce, artist / designer in British Columbia, CAN
Living Systems Relations is a project week in Unit 1 to shift away from weekly teaching and turn around how we explore designing for life by extending our relations, unlearning, reflecting and engage in the other ways of understanding how we are ecosystems. How do we understand living systems, what does it mean to build connected practices? What can the new ways of understanding relationships and communications, teach us how we process design? What does it mean to be ecosystems? How do plants and land communicate? What entangled relations and frequencies are we part of? How do we understand sovereignty in ecosystems, being active on the land, and designing through contexts of fugitive-ness? What can living systems relations teach us?
Living system relations raise many questions and this week we make a journey to unpack some of those by navigating from Kew Gardens in London to Vancouver Island, British Columbia and entering your local ecosystems. Thinking through being living systems, being land and being part of your own on-site explorations through connecting science, indigenous and ‘designerly’ ways of knowing.
Day 1
The team created a hybrid walk and met with Prof. Phil Stevenson to discuss plant life in the greenhouses of Kew Gardens. Phil Stevenson has been part of Kew for many years, developed fieldwork around the world and is head of the Biological Chemistry research group and Priority Leader of Trait Diversity and Function. The Science Priority studying plant and fungal traits, to aid conservation, increase resilience to global change, and explore potential uses of plants and fungi for human health and well-being. Kew Science, Royal Botanic Gardens, London, UK
Day 2
We were joined online by Klewetua, Rodney Sayers, is a Hupacasath artist from Ahswinis, Port Alberni, British Columbia. Emily Luce, is an artist / designer in British Columbia exploring the overlooked details of the world, previously the president of US-based non-profit DesignInquiry. Rodney and Emily are the founders of C.R.A.F.T. / qwicčiƛma _ The Centre for Retrofitting and Failure Techniques _ qwicčiƛma (the sky opened up) is how we translate this concept to nuučaańuł. C.R.A.F.T. is developing a printmaking studio, stage and native plant and dye garden in order to welcome artists from many backgrounds to Ahswinis for the purpose of artistic exchange. Presently, it is working with a team of consultants including a certified energy analyst and electrician, a master builder, a waste stream expert, master gardener and community advocate, a First Nations energy policy expert, a First Nations screen printing studio, a wild pigment expert, and a master collaborative printmaker to construct a Roadmap for the studio that explores how artistic practice can give more than it takes in every aspect.