Design Studio 03 - Third Session
Course Details
Name: Design Studio 03 - Third Session
Dates: 29 May 2025
Faculty: Roger Guilemany with Ane Guerra
Story Telling Abstract
Throughout my time with this project in MDEF, I have been using the concept of letters to organize my ideas about the project, in addition to writing and sending letters as well. Therefore, when tasked with creating a story-version of the abstract for my project, an open letter seemed like a great place to start. Here is my current version of the story of my project:
Letter
Dear Reader,
Have you ever marveled at the amount of clothing in the trash on your street? Have you ever noticed a discarded television that has been smashed to pieces? Have you ever picked these items up?
I do.
It pains me to see these items discarded, often still usable or with many usable parts. I create new objects out of them that go to the illogical extreme of radical reuse. I take discarded clothing and consumer electronics and transform them into objects from another reality; where computers have cloth screens and woven trackpads, and jeans have butt patches that light up. In an effort to reuse everything, purpose and function are transformed and the results are ridiculous.
But how absurd really is this in a world where, the United Nations reports, 62 billion kgs of e-waste were generated in 2022? How absurd is inviting laughter at these ‘solutions’ when according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the equivalent of a truck full of clothing waste is burned or buried every second?
The ideal is to actually fix our items so that they can be used for longer. Community repair efforts from Restart Parties, Repair Cafes, Mend in Public Days, to individual repair efforts are a place to start addressing these practical problems and deepening our connection to the objects that occupy our lives. However, when repair is not even an option in our collective thoughts, when we face external pressure from advisements and social judgements, why not embrace the weird?
Dear reader, what weird will you embrace? Will you join me in the strange world I imagine? Start mending your clothes with broken electronics and your electronics with cloth and thread? Or, will you try your hand at repairing your clothes in a more traditional manner? Will you find a community to help you fix the fan that stopped working last summer? Can you keep your smartphone for just one year longer? Will you begin to brag about how old your items are, because really, it’s absurd that we don’t view the longevity of our objects as a personal achievement.
I hope you will join me in this world of Darned Circuits where I imagine a world on the opposite extreme, and perhaps, we can start conversations with those still stuck in reality, so that we can meet in the middle.
All the best, Lucretia Field
Design Space
Updates to my Design Space although I have not been as engaged with my design space in quite a while.