Monday 2 December, 2-5pm
Mithras House G2, Moulsecoomb
Workshop with Mathilda Tham:
The Earth Logic language ombudsperson invites to soil analysis of the ground between different knowledge cultures
Decades of interventions at the levels of products and even discrete systems have failed to reverse climate change and social injustice. At the same time the urgency and complexity of challenges can make us feel powerless and scared. This talk will explore an Earth Logic game plan for design, and what agencies design can have if directed at the level of paradigms, cultures and mindsets. Who can be a designer then, what practices can they adopt, who can they collaborate with and which performance indicators can they use? What can it mean for our knowledge institutions to work from emergent paradigms? These questions are being explored in the research project Earth Logic Design, Linnaeus University, through, for example the prototyping of new professional designer roles. In this talk and workshop, your will meet one of them, the Earth Logic language ombudsperson (after Fletcher and Tham, 2019), and engage in one of their emerging approaches developed to stimulate empathic and generative dialogue across different kinds of knowledge communities and cultures.
Mathilda Tham‘s work seeks to develop uncompromisingly systemic and holistic approaches to sustainability – that is, connecting environmental issues with social justice and mental health, and connecting individual needs with global sustainability. Her field of work is called metadesign – design of change and ways of thinking, doing, being and telling stories within the boundaries of planet Earth. Mathilda Tham is Professor of Design at Linnaeus University and also affiliated with Goldsmiths, University of London.
She has co-created the visionary degree programmes Design + Change and Visual Communication + Change, Linnaeus University. Her research has resulted in: new ways to meet around the infected forest issue, new rituals to integrate different generations, a whole recipe book for living and resource management within Earth’s limits, and new professional roles for designers. Her work is informed by feminist, decolonial, postgrowth perspectives, systems thinking and action research, and brings together artistic, scientific approaches and experiences from being a woman, mother, friend, co-species and survivor of complex trauma. Mathilda Tham is co-author with Kate Fletcher of the Earth Logic Fashion Action Research Plan, which since its launch in February 2020 has reached over one million people globally, influence initiatives in policy, industry, media and activism, and has been translated into four languages. She is co-founder of the network Union of Concerned Researchers in Fashion, which drives systemic change in the global fashion sector.
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