More-than-human humanities research group!

Tag: Design

Mineral Matterings: Encountering Minerals through design w/ Petra Lilja

Petra Lilja, 80% seminar
Mineral Matterings: Encountering Minerals through design

5th June 2023, 13:00-16:00
Room E1, Konstfack and Zoom https://konstfack-se.zoom.us/j/63693025724


Doctoral student on the KTD Programme

Discussant: Dr. Alexandra R. Toland
Date: 5th June, 13:00 – 16:00
Hybrid location: Room E1, Konstfack / Zoom https://konstfack-se.zoom.us/j/63693025724

Seminar title: Mineral Matterings: Encountering Minerals through design
This thesis problematizes an extractivist relation to matter underpinned by dualisms that separates humans from ‘nature’ and which allows for the treatment of matter as mere resource to be exploited. I suggest that critical mapping –exposing design’s invisibilities in terms of abstract and distanced sites of extraction and production– can help diagnosing and understanding this destructive kind of anthropocentrism that underpins the design field as well, and Western modernity and culture at large. Creative approaches like attentively encountering other-than-human worlds and exploring minerals as agential matter and trans-corporeal enactments, emerged in my search to understand mineral matter otherwise. These approaches were developed through two design projects: Mineral Walk and Creative Critical Clay, both situated in sites of past, present or future mineral extraction. In short, the design projects explore the complexities of the extractivist mode of existence as well as the frictions and potentials of adaptively adjusting towards more relational understandings of matter and materiality, with the aim for design practice to be part of more life-affirming systems on Earth.

Petra Lilja
Petra Lilja is an industrial designer and researcher drawing from both art and science in her work. She is affiliated researcher at The Posthumanities Hub and member of Design + Posthumanism Network, engaging with critical posthumanism and feminist new materialism via her design practice, research and teaching. She previously worked as design lecturer and program director of the Design + Change Programs at Linnaeus University. For four years she ran an eponymous galley in Malmö displaying art, design and research. She is a member of the jury of the annual Swedish Design award UNG and its equivalent in South Korea.

Dr. Alexandra R. Toland
Dr. Alexandra Toland is Associate Professor of Arts and Research at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar in Germany, where she directs the Ph.D. program in art and design. She earned her MFA from the Dutch Art Institute of the Netherlands and PhD in landscape planning from the Technical University of Berlin. Alex has published widely on artistic (research) practices as they relate to soil protection, air pollution and the Anthropocene, including the co-edited book, Field to Palette – Dialogues on Soil and Art in the Anthropocene (Taylor and Francis, 2018). She co-chaired the German Soil Science Society’s (DBG) Commission 8 Soils in Education and Society from 2011 to 2015, having organized multiple art exhibitions and film screening events, and is currently the co-chair of the Commission on the History, Philosophy and Sociology of Soils of the International Soil Science Society.

To receive seminar materials in advance, contact Petra Lilja Petra.Lilja@konstfack.se

PH & EBL hybrid seminar on “Design Ecologies: Towards Artistic and Postconventional (Research) Practices”, 14th June!

Welcome to The Posthumanities Hub & The Eco- and Bioart Lab Hybrid Seminar on “Design Ecologies: Towards Artistic and Postconventional (Research) Practices” with speakers Carrie Foulkes (University of Glasgow) and Dr Lynn Wilson (University of Glasgow), which takes place on 14th June at 13:15-15:00 CEST in the room Faros (Tema building, Campus Valla, Linköping University), and on Zoom (for registration details, see below)

Generous emptiness: sculptural and architectural encounters

Abstract: 

Photo: Carrie Foulkes, Monument on a Hill

This talk will ponder different kinds of ‘emptiness’ and their potentialities. As a way into thinking about some relevant themes, I’ll introduce the Sun Hive, exploring the hive’s material and conceptual aspects and how it symbolises a certain kind of relationship between humans and honeybees. Unlike many other forms of bee box that already have frames installed inside them, the Sun Hive provides a colony with a primarily ’empty’ space in which to build their comb, contained by a form that reflects and honours the bees’ natural preferences. The hive is imbued with an ethos of generosity, love and respect rather than of control.

Thinking about the Sun Hive will enable a consideration of some of the meaningful and generative ways in which an artistic practice can meet with a scientific method of observation in an ecological context. We’ll also look at spatial sculptural/installation practices as transformative sites in terms of human health and wellbeing. I’ll narrate embodied encounters with artworks and the ways in which these have resonated and provided support during a time of bereavement. The talk will close with a reflection on some of the ways in which built environments can be conducive to contemplative states, drawing on examples of remarkable public spaces such as the Kamppi Chapel – “the chapel of silence” – in Helsinki, and contrasting this with the prevalent strategy of ‘hostile architecture’ in urban design.

Bio:

Carrie Foulkes is a British essayist and poet whose multidisciplinary practice also encompasses visual and live arts. She is particularly interested in the intersections of experimental literature, narrative studies, bodywork, performance, medical humanities and bioethics. She is a doctoral candidate at the University of Glasgow and a visiting researcher at Linköping University. https://carriefoulkes.com/

Circular Design Perspectives from the UK. The Case for Multidisciplinary Practice
Photo: Lynn I. Wilson, Circular Design Perspectives from the UK

Abstract

The implementation of a circular economy requires a multidisciplinary approach to close the loop and advance research and practice across citizens, consumers, and businesses. Artists and designers have a vital role to play in advancing conceptual and practical applications of circular thinking – new material research, design for disassembly, zero waste design and design for durability.

The presentation will begin with an overview from Lynn about her experience of applying western art and design teaching practices with indigenous people in sub-Saharan Africa and how this earlier experience shaped her understanding of the current global environmental crisis. From there, the presentation will share examples from Lynn’s practice as a consultant working with design led and non-design led businesses and academics, critiquing solutions for a more sustainable society. Lynn will present her new project – Circular Materials Repository, working in collaboration with the Creative Informatics Centre, Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh University.

Bio:

Dr Lynn Wilson is a Scottish textile designer, circular design practitioner, researcher, and lecturer, who recently completed a social science PhD at the Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow. Her consultancy, Circular Design Scotland advances circular design knowledge through working with artists, designers, and businesses and is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the University of the Arts London, Centre for Circular Design.

Twitter: @LynnIWilson

Instagram: @LynnIWilson

www.circulareconomywardrobe

www.lynnwilson.co.uk

TEDx Bath: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYqXf6ewboo

REGISTRATION

REGISTER HERE: https://liu-se.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5Ukd-ihrzMuGNMnDeKr_jKdV9x3cdrjdt4X

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