Author: Sarah

Online Lunchtime Talk – What does ‘nature’ mean to you? – followed by Walkshop in Stanmer Park

Lucy Dixon and I are presenting our work for the Mass Observation project on Wednesday, June 26, 1 – 2pm GMT+1.

Our talks combine celebrating the power of individual and collective connection to the more-than-human world. We both focus on the power of walking to heal connections to oneself, others and other beings. We highlight the importance of individual reflection in driving collective action towards urgent climate challenges.

Attendees are also invited to an in-person ‘walkshop’ on July 13, 11am-12pm designed to bring the presentation themes to life. The walkshop will experiment with design-led ideas that help build a deeper understanding of how people can be better connected to place, to strengthen connections between all beings and advocate for slower ways of living.

Book here for the online presentations

Book here for the walkshop

I’ve recently been working at the University of Brighton and delivering day or half day workshops to help students with their Master’s final projects.

It’s a challenge to design a workshop that speaks to students from across disciplines, some even declare they can’t draw!

Here are a few of the sessions presentations where students produced some insightful work. It’s satisfying when students use the outputs of these sessions in their final workbooks.

In March 2022, I delivered a talk called Boundaries where I discussed various uses of the word and how it relates to design and the commons. I introduced the practice of Design for Commoning – a transformative process attempting to change the economic system that the citizens involved are a part of. It’s a way of reversing the conventional role of design as part of mainstream capitalism by reconfiguring everyday lives and finding new forms of economic production.

At the end of the talk I show example maps that feature boundaries in some form or other, whether it’s about exclusion, what’s hidden/not seen, a single person’s version (or bias) of events, the boundaries of a network, a specific territory or temporality.

I asked students to complete several mapping exercises, firstly to map where they have seen interdependencies in their day and secondly, to map aspects of their current MA projects.

Sustainability cannot be of some things and not others; it can countenance no boundaries of inclusion and exclusion

Tim Ingold

Knowing the world through matter

I have been fortunate to be given some funding via the Necessity Network to explore new ideas and interests beyond my MA Sustainable Design. Following on from my arts practice (including the making of Oak Gall Ink) in Commons Sense, I wanted to research the uses of localised materials (e.g. sea water, seaweed, chalk etc) for the creation of natural inks and their application.

Starting out, I referred to the work on Jason Logan to explore making inks from locally sourced materials. Most of the materials I initially foraged from my back garden or from the seashore in Hastings.

Here are some drawings developed with inks made from Alder, Egg Wrack, Sloeberries and Oak Gall Ink.

The basic ingredients required for creating water based inks that have a consistency similar to shop bought bottled inks:

Rainwater
Salt (could be foraged sea salt)
White vinegar
Foraged material (such as berries)
Clove/clove oil or wintergreen oil
Gum Arabic