TIME:
12 weeks
TEAM:
Solo
TOOLS:
Research
Site Visit
Illustrator
Photoshop
Clay carving
Silicone molding putty
"PROBLEM":
As a studio we went into this project not considering a "problem" or "solution" as this can be a saviorist approach to design, an approach rooted in privilege and positions of unbalanced power.
We started the project by taking a studio camping trip to Bluff, Utah. Bluff is a small town in Southern Utah that has a population of about 250 residents. We went into the project with the intention of understanding.
INSPIRATION & RESEARCH:
The textures of the land (I took all the photos found below on our camping trip), readings Towards a Queer Ecofeminism by Greta Gaard, The Land Ethic by Aldo Leopold, How Forests Think by Eduardo Kahn, Indigenous views on land stewardship, instances of Legal Environmental Personhood across the globe, and an Are.na board I created.
EMPATHY:
From all my research and inspiration, I took an extremely empathetic approach to looking at the land as a person, as a thing with agency and feeling. I chose to look at the similarities humans and "living" organisms have with this "nonliving" land.
PROCESS:
I dove headfirst into research this semester, I read article after article about land being personified, I focused a majority of my research on the legal concept of Environmental Personhood.
PRESENTATION:
DESIGN INTERVENTION:
RESULTS:
This semester's focus was research, and I believe I very much accomplished that, although I wish I had spent more time furthering the product. I feel like I set up the concepts so well and they sort of fell flat considering I didn't spend as much time on that aspect.
However, that being said, this was one of my favorite project concepts. I liked it so much that I plan on doing more work considering how landscapes or environments should have agency. Possibly in the context of the ocean?
Stay tuned.
FALL 2021
PRODUCT RESEARCH 2
PROFESSOR TSOUTSOUNAKIS
