Fri 19 October, 6:00pm – 7:00pm
Venue: MHL 1.17a/b, Martin Hall
FREE
This conversation brings together three practitioners to explore what roles design might play in collective responses to climate change. Taking in a variety of methods, approaches and forms of design – from permaculture to architectural design; from transition design to design fictions – it will explore design as a tool for collective organisation. What can design do in the here-and-now of our warming world? What might design do in a more ecologically just world? And how might it help us get from here to there?
There’ll be plenty of chance for the audience to ask questions and there will be free refreshments and snacks.
PANELLISTS
JOANNA BOEHNERT is an environmental communicator, designer and educator. She’s a Lecturer in Design and the Creative Industries at Loughborough University and is the founding director of EcoLabs, a studio visualising complex environmental issues. Her book Design, Ecology, Politics: Towards the Ecocene was published by Bloomsbury earlier this year, and has been praised as ‘a must-read for everyone interested in design, ecology, communication and politics.’
https://ecolabsblog.com/
ANNE MARIE-CULHANE is an artist whose work across a number of forms seeks to catalyse collective organisation to reduce the harm being inflicted on the planet, to increase understanding of our place in the world, and to bring to life positive visions now and for the future. She works closely with the University’s Sustainability team as the founder of Fruit Routes, a project that saw the planting of fruit, nut trees and edible plants along footpaths and cycle paths across the university campus. It creates a spring snowfall of blossom and an autumnal abundance of fresh fruits and berries for harvesting, foraging, eating and distributing.
https://www.amculhane.co.uk/
BIANCA ELZENBAUMER combines design research methods with critical approaches to education, conflict mediation and DIY making to explore how designers can contribute to create ecologically and socially just economies. Together with Fabio Franz she founded ‘Brave New Alps’, who have instigated a number of acclaimed projects that instigate, as well as explore, alternative ways of organising our lives. These have involved collaborative working with refugees, workers’ rights groups, artists and place-based communities. Bianca is also a lecturer at Leeds Art University. http://www.brave-new-alps.com/
The conversation will be chaired by DAVID BELL, Radar’s Programme Co-Ordinator. He is also a member of Out of the Woods, a writing collective exploring the forms of sociality and struggle required to survive and thrive in the face of climate change.
This event is part of the annual Fruit Routes Harvest programme, organised by the Sustainability team at Loughborough University. Across the 19th and 20th of October there are a number of events taking place on campus. For more information please visit http://www.lboro.ac.uk/services/sustainability/biodiversity/fruit-route/.