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BIO-PARALLELS
⏤ The story of rebuilding empathy between human and non-human. Awarded distinction dissertation (RCA, 2020) on the human perception of belonging and reconnection with nature.

excerpt
“Plants dominate every terrestrial environment, composing ninety-nine percent of the biomass on Earth” [1] meanwhile human society’s disconnection from nature goes hand in hand with its inability to perceive it as a living being. If you want to understand a tree or a plant, not as a resource or as a scientific subject, the most instinctive way of doing so would be to try to understand it in human terms. BIO-PARALLELS is an analysis of the storytelling practices of Art & Humanities, Science and Design, a crucible of sensual narratives at the dawn of the Anthropocene; stories of humanity’s relationship with the natural kingdom. The artists and designers here are all ‘watchers,’ whose work offers a sensual commentary on their practice and surroundings. Some of them have flipped their subject, playing with questions of perspective and perception, telling different stories using different means; others have provided a mirror for storytellers and their observations, using smell, observation, disruption or experience invitations in an attempt to shed their human skin. All have attuned themselves to another natural kingdom in a bid to evaluate and re-describe the human condition from an alternate narrative perspective.
A Vision of Sight: Where the City Can’t See (Liam Young, video); Quercus, 2020 (Formafantasma collaboration with Emanuele Coccia); Nature Unframed (Letha Wilson, installation)
Don’t Just Hear, Listen: Becoming a tree (Jonas Voigt, experimental project); 25 woodworms, wood, microphone (Zimoun, sound system);
Tactile Fleshy Construct: The Cactus Project (Laura Cinti C-lab, bio-art); Face Nature (Madeline Schwartzman, mixmedia)
Smell of Extinction, Taste of Bread: How to make Birch Bark Shortbread Cookies (Ashley Adamant, blog post); Resurrecting the Sublime (Sissel Tolaas, installation);
Personal Positioning: Abraham Poincheval’s performance art; Pénétrables (Nicola L, installation); Cocoons (Porky Hefer, product design); Parallelum (Kamila Iżykowicz, speculative design).
Intelligence, Communication and Mobility: PlantFiction (Troika, speculative design).
Human disconnection from nature results in non-empathetic, unsustainable actions such as deforestation and the extinction of irreplaceable natural habitats. Design is very often guilty in delivering admirable, if harmful ‘waste’ for an over-consumptive market on an overcrowded planet. Anyone trying to become a responsible designer of the future has a new obligation to design for subtraction rather than pollution, and for symbiosis within a natural environment. Practices that cherish the ecosystem we cohabit with other organic and inorganic matter is essential. Rather than constantly punishing and criticizing our actions, hope is required. Selfishness, in terms of self-preservation, is the natural state of any being. What is needed is a reasoning of the products, services and experiences that give us all their inherent benefits while also improving life and coexistence – taking, when necessary, a step back. Sensual narratives, responses, performances, objects evoking new views, emotions and empathetic responses are shaping this discussion with a very specific approach, dislocating the human subject by creating parallel worlds built from an understanding of other beings’ perspectives.
KAMILA IżYKOWICZ
[1] Stefano Mancuso and others, Brilliant Green (ISLANDPRESS, 2015), foreword
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