The Garden that Sees, Smells, and Hears
Workshops by Annemarie Piscaer
As a designer fascinated with dust as a material, the image “Pale Blue Dot” taken by the Voyager 1 Spacecraft, on 14 February 1990, has an incredible significance. It shows planet Earth from the furthest possible distance. From this perspective, for me, Earth appears as a small, fragile particle of dust in an immensely vast space. Zooming in, the famous picture of the “Blue Marble”, chronicled by the Apollo 17 crew in 1972, represents the first photograph in which Earth is in full view. This image was the first to conjure the “overview effect” in people; perceiving Earth as an ecosystem, this was an important milestone for the environmental movement.
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges we as humans face. It requires that we fundamentally change our habits, change our systems. This necessary change remains difficult as long as dominant views that separate “planetary” and “human” are maintained. Living in the Anthropocene, dominant human cultures have placed humans at the centre of the ecosystem, rather than inextricably entangled within and across it: actors, among many actors, enmeshed across scales. Alternative visualisations are needed to change this perspective. Research that enables not only mere cognitive understanding, but is “experiential” as well. Embodied knowledge that enables us to “feel” the role humans currently play in the ecosystem.
‘From outside to inside’
Workshop Inside out
The educational workshop “From outside to inside” attempts to evoke a certain embodied knowledge. In an imaginary journey to the moon, participants are invited to experience an overview effect. The journey continues by zooming in. Zooming in further they observe their surroundings through a digital microscope. Depicting an amazement of what exists all around us, here on planet Earth, from the inside.
Student working with a digital microscope in the Workshop From Outside to Inside
From outside to inside - close-up
Workshop From Grassroots to Blueprint
Blueprint
We found tiny mushrooms, stunning shapes in leaves, traces of animals. We collected these, played with them -layering, composition. And used it to make cyanotypes. Printing things through sunlight. Understanding light also as a source, an actor. Botanic Anna Atkins, one of the first to apply it as a form of photography, used it to map and document knowledge of various plants. You could see the results as a blueprint of a place, revealing the narrative of the garden.
Workshop overview
From Grassroots to Blueprint took place during a workshop week with second year New Design and Attitude students. Unravelling, mapping and questioning, what can be made with what grows and blooms in our own environment? Can design be regenerative, be beneficial to nature instead of harming it? We used a simple process to make green paper from grass and nettles. It is mainly perennial ryegrass that grows in the Academy’s garden, a type of grass that can be seen as an invasive species. If this grass is too excess, other species/herbs will have less space. By removing the clippings of this perennial ryegrass, the soil becomes poorer, which benefits other herbs. In short, using grass clippings as material for a design ensures a more biodiverse garden. In this process, students had to observe, have a detailed look.
Student work, Blueprint
Student work, Blueprint