Design and Nature: A Partnership Book Launch

You are warmly invited to the Design and Nature: A Partnership book launch, hosted by the Ian Gillespie Design Research Fund, the Emily Carr DESIS Lab and the Design for Biodiversity Research Project.

The launch will be held on Friday November 22nd from 11:30am to 1:00pm in Rennie Hall.

It will include a short talk held between the three editors, Kate Fletcher, Louise St. Pierre and Mathilda Tham. This book represents the collected work of over 20 international contributors. Mathilda and Kate will be joining us from their own launch parties in the UK, via videoconference. The speakers will address a few short questions on the background of the book, it’s conception, and the process of collaboration. The launch will close with audience questions and a continued reception in the Atrium.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Details of the Launch

The launch will be held on Friday, November 22nd, 2019, in Rennie Hall at the Emily Carr University Campus (520 E 1st Ave, Vancouver, BC V5T 0H2). The launch reception will begin at 11:30, refreshments will be provided. READ books will also be offering a chance to purchase the book. (Cash and cards accepted). The doors to Rennie Hall will open at 11:50. The short, moderated talk and videoconference will be held from 12:00pm-12:30pm. Reception will follow from 12:30pm-1:00pm.

Details of the Book

Organized as a dialogue between nature and design, this book explores design ideas, opportunities, visions and practices through relating and uncovering experience of the natural world. Presented as an edited collection of 25 wide-ranging short chapters, the book explores the possibility of new relations between design and nature, beyond human mastery and understandings of nature as resource and by calling into question the longstanding role for design as agent of capitalism. The book puts forward ways in which design can form partnerships with living species and examines designers’ capacities for direct experience, awe, integrated relationships and new ways of knowing. Design and Nature: A Partnership is a rich resource for designers who wish to learn to engage with sustainability from the ground up. Topics explored include:

• New design ethics of care

• Indigenous perspectives

• Prototyping with nature

• Methods for new design and nature relations

• A history of design and nature

• Animist beliefs

• De-centering human-centered design

• Understanding nature has power and agency

Editors:

Kate Fletcher is a Research Professor at University of the Arts London, UK where she explores design for sustainability.

Louise St. Pierre is an Associate Professor at Emily Carr University, Canada, where she researches sustainability, contemplative practice and design’s relationship with nature.

Mathilda Tham’s work sits in a creative, feminist, activist space between design, futures studies and sustainability. She is Professor of Design, Linnaeus University, Sweden.

Contributors:

Contributors from around the world and include faculty and students from Emily Carr: BDes faculty Eugenia Bertulis, CAC faculty, Cameron Cartiere, BDes undergraduate, Marcus Dénommé, MDes graduate, Avery Shaw. Book design by BDes faculty, Katherine Gillieson.

Support:

Support to hire two Research Assistants on the development of this book, Avery Shaw and Michal Cabaj, was provided by the Emily Carr Internal Research Fund.