Food for thought: materialising the more-than-human in design pedagogy.

• In Event: Messing with Methods in More-than-Human Worlds II

Abstract

Increasingly, designers are collaborating with other species to develop alternate material practices. Yet, these practices and the associated politics are not yet well mapped, and pathways for sharing can seem elusive. In an attempt to redress this imbalance, we performed a series of moves to introduce biology as a collaborative material practice into a design education, in a small town in Denmark. Beginning with Waag’s BioHackAcademy, we built a lab and tried to biohack design practice. Following resistances, we turned to young adults not yet conditioned by education or professional experience and—with 100 Year 8 students from two local high schools—biohacked the high school science curriculum. Finally, with a group of Masters students, we biohacked the NordicBaltic BioLabs Symposium on Food+[material practices]. These activities uncovered opportunities and resistances around multi-species design, and led to a new research program, Food for Thought: using food and eating as starting points for thinking. Eating is intimate, mundane—socially, culturally and politically potent—aesthetically rich and essential to life. Whether human, antelope, plant, funghi or bacteria, we eat to survive and to thrive. Food for Thought asks how shared and complementary concerns around food and eating might better entangle the desires of different living beings on our fragile planet. Can we eat to thrive, flourish, and grow together? Can food provide a much needed frame for thinking? Our reflections, small triumphs and stubborn resistances contribute to mapmaking multi-species practices in design pedagogy, through materially engaged responses to such questions.

Author

• Danielle Wilde, University of Southern Denmark