[P2P-F] Fwd: Tasting like a Forest

Wed Sep 3 16:48:19 CEST 2014

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Doors of Perception <mailing at list.doorsofperception.com>
Date: Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 5:17 AM
Subject: Tasting like a Forest
To: michelsub2004 at gmail.com

  [image: logo]
AUTUMN NEWSLETTER from John Thackara

   - Tasting like a forest
   - UnBox in India
   - Forthcoming events

FROM SYSTEMS THINKING TO SYSTEM SENSING

Fifty designers, artists and architects spent a week at our Xskool on
Grinda last month to explore the subject of food systems and design. Once
on the island, we focused on two questions: What does this food system
taste like? and, How does this forest think?

One team invented a Soil Tasting Ceremony. They made infusions from ten
different berries on the island and displayed them next to soil samples
taken from each plant's location; the soils were displayed in wine glasses.
We were then invited to compare the tastes of the teas and soils in
silence. It was a powerful moment. (There are images here
<http://https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.558136864292578.1073741828.349523758487224&type=1>
).

Ahead of the event I thought soil as a living system, and soil health,
would be a hard to sell to a cerebral group of (mostly) grad students.
Today's designers think far more about connecting with each other, I
assumed, than about connecting with the soil. Why would they? Fewer than
half of us ever see or touch the stuff.

My concerns proved unfounded. It was like pushing at an open door.
Xskoolers went scrabbling around the forest of Grinda like so many voles.
They found ways to catch the taste of the forest and put it in a pot. They
made cookies with forest berries and bartered these with tourists. They
created tactile pathways so we could we feel the forest through our feet. A
Latvian designer made pine cone syrup and gave it to Teacher, who was
mightily pleased.

This positive energy was welcome, but unexpected. In searching for an
explanation, I came across a wonderful book called Soil and Soul
<http://www.alastairmcintosh.com/soilandsoul.htm> by Alastair McIntosh. "We
yearn for connection with one another, and with the soul" McIntosh writes,
"but we forget that, like the earthworm, we too are an organism of the
soil. We too need grounding".

Otherwise stated: Resilience and systems *thinking* will never be
transformational in the absence of systems *feeling*. But how to achieve
that? Asking researchers to empathise with earthworms feels like a big ask.
For every designer learning how to think like a forest by tasting one, as
we did on Grinda, thousands more spend most of their time in studios,
online, or within the rarefied walls of the research economy.

Perhaps my search for a 'solution' to the ecoliteracy 'problem'
<http://www.doorsofperception.com/art-perception/desert-of-the-real/> is
old-fashioned. If McIntosh is right, and we all share a latent need to be
grounded, then it probably makes no sense to demand changes to professional
curriculums. A better way is to meet in life-rich places without an agenda.
See you at a future Xskool.

Here is the Xskool Facebook page
<http://www.facebook.com/pages/Doors-of-Perception-Xskool/349523758487224?ref=stream>.
I also gave this year's Xskoolers a Food Systems Reader
<http://www.doorsofperception.com/food-systems-design/food-systems-and-design-a-reader/>.
Xskool was a partnership between Doors of Perception, Konstfack
<http://www.konstfack.se/>, and FuturePerfect Festival
<http://http://futureperfect.se>. This event builds on a series of
experimental Xskool encounters <http://doorsofperception.com/xskool/> over
the last three years including Xskool Grinda 2013
<http://designobserver.com/feature/between-sorrel-and-supertanker/38057>.
UNBOX FESTIVAL

For this year's UnBox Festival <http://www.unboxfestival.com/> in New Delhi
(12-14 December) I'll be joining Mansi Gupta
<http://www.core77.com/blog/kickstarter/trmtab_how_buckminster_fuller_and_one_companys_leather_waste_inspired_two_students_27012.asp>
for a workshop to develop the programme of the Kanpur Design Innovation
Lab. The project embodies, in Mansi's words, “a new story about the leather
industry and the people who work in it”. The Lab, situated at the heart of
India's largest leather-producing region, will develop products and
services that combine clean forms of leather making with direct connections
between between producers and customers. If I have any say in the matter,
I'll also be re-visiting the subject of cycle commerce
<http://designobserver.com/feature/cycle-commerce-as-an-ecosystem/37905/>
and my modest proposal for the de-motorisation of Delhi
<http://doorsofperception.com/notopic/caloryville-the-two-wheeled-city/>.
MY TALKS THIS AUTUMN

   - Reyjkjavik, 11 September
   <http://www.nbo.nu/bdh_filearea/Bo_och_forvalta_i_Norden.pdf>, Nordic
   Housing Association
   - Reyjkjavik, 12 September
   <http://lhi.is/english/programmes/ma-programmes/ma-design/research-and-collaborative-projects/>,
   Iceland Academy of Arts, MA Design Workshop (Tel +354 552 4000)
   - Eindhoven, 15 September
   <http://www.natlab.nl/programma/2365/Club_Natlab_I_Lezing_John_Thackara/%20>,
   Plaza Futura at Club Natlab
   - Växjö, Sweden, 24 September,
   <http://lnu.se/education/programmes/daid2?ec_vt=English&l=en> Linnaeus
   University
   - Oslo 15 October <http://www.systemsorienteddesign.net> System Oriented
   Design Conference
   - Dundee, 22 October <http://www.dundee.ac.uk/research/main/news/>
   Chiasma, Sustaining Rural Scotland
   - Buenos Aires, 28 October <http://www.fidbsas.com/programacion2012>,
   International Design Festival
   - Amsterdam, 20 November
   <http://www.dezwijger.nl/104618/nl/joint-venture-2014-dag-1-de-energieke-samenleving>,
   Pakhuis de Zwijger, De energieke samenleving

CONTACT

Contact me (John Thackara, Doors of Perception) by Email
john at doorsofperception.com
*Blog* *doorsofperception.com* <http://www.doorsofperception.com/>
*Twitter* *@johnthackara* <https://twitter.com/johnthackara>
*LinkedIn* *www.linkedin.com*
<http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=139933&trk=tab_pro>

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-- 
Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at:
http://en.wiki.floksociety.org/w/Research_Plan

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