Vision
In the name of human progress, we have left a trail of destruction of the non-human world, driving countless species to extinction, exacerbating climate change, and polluting every far corner of the planet. Throughout a series of paradigms, most of our design practices directly contributed to these crises, exploiting ecosystems and collecting resources to create value for our needs. Typically, designers think that new solutions to human pleasure, well-being, health, and productivity, are within reach, and that a human-centred approach to environmental sustainability, social injustices, free-market capitalism, and social inequalities, is the path to solving these issues [2]. Yet, I believe there is something fundamentally wrong with this approach. We have distanced ourselves from the non-human world, assuming divine status.
First and foremost, I believe the challenge for designers lies in decentring the human subject in our design process and moving towards more porous, ecological, and relational understandings between non-humans, tools, materials, and design practices, acknowledging the interconnectedness of all beings. This means, recognizing that humans are just one part of a larger social-ecological system, each with an equal stake in its preservation and flourishing. Harnessing this new way of thinking, designers should focus on creating local solutions for worldly problems, replacing globalization with systemic approaches to local and regenerative systems that work in symbiotic relationships with the ecosystem.
In my mind, this systemic change should be initiated at the business level, since this is where design meets real-life application. There are multiple opportunities to create new local value systems that generate value not just in the form of natural and renewable goods and sustainable services, but also in the form of knowledge and trust, community building, ecosystem regeneration, and landscape restoration.
"Everything is connected to everything else; everything must go somewhere; there is no such thing as a free lunch; and nature knows best" [1: p.41]
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Professional Identity
I explore alternative design perspectives by collaborating with living and non-living materials to create valuable and sustainable composite materials, thus, bringing design closer to the natural world. Focusing on the challenges of the renewable and natural fibre industry, and with a hands-on explorative approach, I aim to create novel (composite) materials with natural fibres and design innovative products and applications that showcase their unique properties. I seek to deeply understand the materials through literature research and by actively experimenting and creating multiple samples. While doing so, I attune my senses to unexpected and emerging material and aesthetic characteristics and translate this into design opportunities. However, my design process extends beyond mere experimentation. I am a designer with a profound interest in the natural sciences like biology, (bio)chemistry and ecology. I draw inspiration from grounded scientific knowledge and aim to connect seemingly unrelated fields of expertise into my design process. In doing so, I carefully balance the capturing of the unexpected with knowledge-driven design based on natural sciences and data.
Integrating post-anthropocentric perspectives is at the core of my work. I employ diverse methods and approaches to decentralize the human subject in the design process. Importantly, I guarantee non-human participation to establish intricate and caring relationships between humans and non-humans. To this end, I adopt a synergy of creativity and technology to design the appropriate tools to bridge the gap between human and non-human perspectives. Moreover, I aim to situate my design process in a specific place and use a variety of methodologies to understand the relationships, interactions and values between landscapes, ecosystems, individual non-humans and humans, as well as communities, organizations, cultural values, and history within this place. This means, for example, conducting a landscape ethnography, noticing the presence of non-human entities, adopting their perspectives, and incorporating insights from experts. These skills make me an emphatic designer, enabling me to connect with others, and capable of identifying the needs of different stakeholders. As a result, I often take on organizational or managerial roles in projects, focusing on tasks such as planning, setting goals, and checking in with others.
Harnessing these tools and methods, I am committed to transforming the production process of new materials into regenerative systems that benefit both humans and non-humans alike. I achieve this by infusing the production process of materials with established or newly developed collaborative relationships with the natural environment. Thus, transforming conventional human-centred manufacturing to a symbiotic ‘bio-facturing’ process, piecing together new, regenerative, and local value networks that benefit a range of stakeholders, both human and non-human alike.