Inquiry into the conflict between ecology, economy, and culture
03
of a single plastic keyboard key.
Reading Ian McHarg, Buckminster Fuller, and learning about Material Cultures’s investigations into hyper-local, regenerative construction solutions has opened me up to systems-level ecological and economic dialogue.
It seems that access to real stewardship-forward programs exist beneath the layers of sustainability and “circular economy” initiatives backed by corporations and industries that benefit directly from existing production and supply-chain frameworks. Carbon offsetting, recycled shoes, etc.
Within this realm, what’s fascinating to me is how the shape of contemporary material production apparatuses shape our built environments, which in turn shapes how we move, our sense of belonging, so on and so forth. Being exposed to this notion—seeing how structural forces structure our world—is as enlightening as it is upsetting.
My main questions are:
It seems that access to real stewardship-forward programs exist beneath the layers of sustainability and “circular economy” initiatives backed by corporations and industries that benefit directly from existing production and supply-chain frameworks. Carbon offsetting, recycled shoes, etc.
Within this realm, what’s fascinating to me is how the shape of contemporary material production apparatuses shape our built environments, which in turn shapes how we move, our sense of belonging, so on and so forth. Being exposed to this notion—seeing how structural forces structure our world—is as enlightening as it is upsetting.
My main questions are:
-
How do we initiate socio-ecological production models (or support existing and emergent ones) that operate outside of dominant production frameworks?
- What are the structural, cultural, and aesthetic byproducts of contemporary manufacturing and supply processes? How does the way we make things make us?
- How can systems-level consciousness—material awareness—be injected into contemporary culture?