I gave a plenary talk (by video) to the China Eco-Civilization Research and Promotion Association (CECRPA) Conference, 17 November 2019. My focus was an ecological design training platform for designers in China.
In the last 100 years, there have been three eras of design.
During
the Industrial Era, design was powerful driver in the rise of mass
consumer societies. Design made short-life products desirable to
millions of people.
This era saw extraordinary economic growth in money terms.
But
on the negative side, as we now know to our cost, this energy-intense
and extractive economy depleted non-renewable resources. It also caused
a
CONTENTS Dates for my 2020 Meetups and Retreats | Report on our Urban-Rural exhibition in China | Next steps for the Social Food Atlas | Recent publications | Thirty-two case-study collections |Five recommended books
2020 MEETUPS/RETREATS For a second year, I’m hosting week-long Meetups|Project Retreats| Residencies at our home in France. If you are a designer, project curator, (post-)grad student, researcher, or writer – and are working on a thesis, project, or book – check out the programme here.
WINTER RESIDENCIES If you need a personal phase-shift right now, we’re also hosting a small number of winter residences.
URBAN-RURAL DESIGN IN CHINA In November, I curated an exhibition in China called Urban-Rural. Framed by our transition from the oil age to a soil age, its focus was
Words like climate, system, or sustainability are passive. What does work – in reducing the sense of powerlessness and isolation – are examples of real people, taking practical steps, right now. With that lesson in mind, here is a list of case study collections that I’ve found useful, and often inspiring, in my own work.
1. We’re in a transition from the oil age to the soil age. The projects in Urban-Rural are signals of what the soil age will be like.
2. Urban and Rural are one place, not two. Streaming platforms that connect farmers directly to the city bring that social connectivity (back) to life.
3. Analogue and digital are also one place, not two.For example, Urban-Rural celebrates digital tools that enable citizen participation in ecological agriculture.
4. A farm is not a factory – it’s a social and ecological system. This is why Urban-Rural puts Shanghai’s BIOfarm centre stage – because it connects such diverse participants and activities. Social diversity and biodiversity help each other.Every city and every bioregion needs such a farm.
5. Making things in Urban-Rural, and leaving the land healthier, are a single process. Atelier Luma’s algae platform – that produces 3d cups out of bioplastics – is about ecology, not just production. Every region needs an algae platfom, too.
6. Sustainable fashion in Urban-Rural is practical, not aspirational. ‘Sustainable’ is when the soil-friendliness of regionally-grown fibre is measured, tested and monitored by everyone involved. That’s it.
7. Small engage with Big in Urban-Rural – and on equal terms. The giant construction company and the biofarmer? The homestay platform and village elder? The e-commerce giant, and chicken breeder? The soil age has arrived: we have much to teach each other.
8. Where we learn, and how, matters almost more than what. Place is our professor in the learning hubs on show.
9. Old knowledge and new tech also appear on equal terms in Urban-Rural. Zhangyan Harvests was created by a Tongji university professor (Lou Yongqi) but the wisdom of elders, in their place, is given proper respect.
10. Ushering in the soil age is the great work of our time. We are privileged to be playing a part.
Shanghai 28 October 2019 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Zhangyan Harvests Future Country Living Festival John Thackara curates Urban-Rural exhibition
Many people want to reconnect with nature and rural life – but cannot move out of the city for good.
Zhangyan Harvests Festival in Shanghai, on 3 and 4 November, is filled with practical ways to reconnect the two worlds.
Highlight of the festival is an exhibition called Urban-Rural curated by the English writer and philosopher John Thackara.
Located in a beautiful high-tech agricultural dome, Urban-Rural features a dazzling array of real-world projects.
“We’re in a transition from the oil age to the soil age” says Thackara, “and the projects in Urban-Rural are leading the way”.
Urban-Rural includes apps that enable urban people be part-time farmers; streaming platforms that connect farmers directly to the city; and an algae lab that produces 3d cups out of bioplastics.
Other Urban-Rural talking points include a Soil Sensing Ceremony, and a plan for next-generation biofarms.
“China takes the health of small farms seriously” says Thackara. “We’ll show how, using the latest co-operation platforms, millions of Small farmers can co-exist with the Big on equal terms”.
China’s next-generation rural hubs will meet their opposite numbers from Europe in Urban-Rural.
Thirty place-based learning hubs from around the world will also be profiled at Urban-Rural. These include a School for Village Hosts; forest schools; and a mobile beer academy.
The Urban-Rural exhibition takes place in this high-tech agricultural dome near the village of Zhangyan.
Zhangyan Harvests is the brainchild of professor Lou Yongqi, head of design and innovation at China’s prestigious Tongji University.
“We’ve been innovating new links between city and rural for ten years now” Yongqi explains., ”but Zhangyang Harvests takes this work up to a new level”.
“We’re thinking biovillage as well as smart village” Thackara explains. “Urban-Rural includes apps to monitor soil health remotely, and ecological restoration that’s enabled by digital and Artificial Intelligence. Our star Internet of Things exhibit lives in a compost heap”.
International guests, who are also speaking at the inaugural Zhangyan Forum on 3 and 4 November, include Andrea Paoletti from Casa Netural in Italy; Maxim Dedushkov founder of Holis, and CEO of the new rural hub Clara, in Portugal; and Andrew Goodman, founder of Pontio Innovation in Wales.
“Old wisdom appears alongside new technology on equal terms in Urban-Rural” says Thackara, “maybe more”.
FURTHER MEDIA ENQUIRIES China: Liying Huang email: huangliying1218 [@] hotmail [dot] com phone: 3 86 18202163016 International: Kristi van Riet email: meeting [@] thackara [dot] com
[John Thackara is a writer, advisor and bioregional designer. He curated the celebrated Doors of Perception conference for 20 years – first in Amsterdam, later across India – and was commissioner of the UK social innovation biennial Dott 07 and the French design biennial City Eco Lab. Since 2011, Thackara has curated place-based xskool workshops in 20 countries on the theme: Pathways to sustainability: Urban-Rural Reconnection. He studied philosophy before working for ten years as a book publisher and magazine editor. He was the first director (1993 —99) of the Netherlands Design Institute. Today, he is a senior fellow at the Royal College of Art; adjunct professor at Tongji University in Shanghai; visiting professor at School of Visual Arts in New York, and at Pontio Innovation in Wales; and curator of the Social Food Forum. His most recent book – How To Thrive In the Next Economy: Designing Tomorrow’s World Today – has just been published in China]
Could you use some quiet and private time to focus and reflect? Maybe with some exclusive support from me? We’re hosting Residencies this winter in our old house in the south of France.
Meetups in 2020
Our three meetups here in Ganges (France) this summer went so well (as you can see from our Guestbook and my new Instagram: @john.a.thackara) that we’ve scheduled four more for next year. If you are a designer, project curator, grad student, researcher, or writer; if you’re working on a plan, project, thesis or book; could use some time out; and feedback from me: well, consider coming next year. For next year’s dates, and to read more about our meetups – including the application process – go here: thackara.com/meetup
Rewilding AI
The latest waypoint in my China work, in association with Tongji University, is a keynote I’m doing in Shanghai on 14 October about “Rewilding AI”. I’ll argue that although, yes, there are many reasons to push back against the potential uses of AI, the technology also has positive potential uses. For example, AI can enable ways of knowing, and relationships, that reconnect man and nature. It can be an infrastructure for ecosystem repair and monitoring. I’ll look at ways AI can position AgTech at the service of agroecology – with a special focus on farmer-city relationships. Finally, I’ll propose that AI can be the back-end of governance regimes in social-ecological systems.
Emerging Practices (EPC2019) Theme: The Beauty of Uncertainty in the Age of AI. Monday 14 October. Dock, No.468 Yangshupu Rd, Shanghai.
Back to the Land Reader
I’m proud of the latest Reader we made for the annual summer school I do in Sweden, together with Konstfack, whose its theme is Back To The Land 2.0. The first three entries are Annie Proulx on Barkskins, Simone Weil on The Need for Roots, and Pamela Mang on Storying of Place.
Social Food Atlas
The Social Food Atlas, which we launched in April together with Casa Netural and #Matera2019 in Italy, has grown to 128 listings – from Austria to Ukraine. New projects include Community Kitchen Hub on Dartmoor, England; City Farm Augarten in Vienna, Austria; Pop-up-kitchen at Dottenfelderhof in Frankfurt, Germany; Eat Local movement in Romania; Urban Space 500 in Ukraine; The Cyprus Food and Nutrition Virtual Museum in Cyprus; the SAHA! Women’s Food Truck in Malta. mammamiaaa.it/en/atlas-archive/
Pathways to Sustainability, Barcelona
Museu del Disseny de Barcelona is staging an exhibition and events programme on the legacy of Victor Papanek. My talk on 10 December will explore how design for sustainability has evolved since Papanek’s pioneering work.
John Thackara: Urban-rural reconnector. Bioregional designer. Writer/Speaker. Meetup host.
This reader is prepared for the annual Back To The Land 2.0 summer school in Sweden that I run together with Konstfack (Cheryl Akner-Koler) and Annika Göran-Rodell. See also a selection of my recent talks here.
Annie Proulx on Barkskins Or,
how we first got the idea that the earth’s resources are limitless.
Proulx’s story begins with the arrival in “New France” – the vast tract
of north America and Canada colonised by the French between the 16th and
18th centuries. Two young men set out to earn their freedom by clearing
an area of forest; they are soon awestruck by the imposing, often
impenetrable and seemingly limitless extent of the forest.
Simone Weil on The Need for Roots “Rootedness
in a place is the most important and least recognized need of the human
soul. It is one of the hardest to define. A human being has roots by
virtue of his real, active and natural participation in the life of a
community which preserves in living shape certain particular treasures
of the past and certain particular expectations for the future.”
Pamela Mang on Storying of Place “What
makes a shift to true sustainability possible is the power of the
connection between people and place. Place is a doorway into caring.
Love of place unleashes the personal and political will needed to make
profound change. It can also unite people across diverse ideological
spectra because place is what we all share: it is the commons that
allows people to call themselves a community. In every place, geology
and nature interweave over time with human history and culture to create
a place’s recognizable character and nature—its essence. Understanding
these patterns helps reveal new possibilities for how to live in
partnership with place, growing a future of greater abundance and
creativity for all life”.
Street Food A wonderful series of short (30′) films on Netflix.
Xskool Talk 1: The Metabolic Rift (20m, 2014) – the big picture: why we have a problem – industrial food vs living systems vs financial systems – metabolic rift as collective dis-association from living systems
Xskool Talk 2: Ecological Agriculture (17m, 2014) – thousands of experiments; new values; new geographies, – focus on the local > bioregions, foodsheds, watersheds – ecological agriculture: activities
Xskool Talk 3: Social Farming (24m, 2014) – food systems are social systems – growing, distributing, preparing as collaboration – connecting small actions, rooted in a place, with the bigger picture – macro systems contain micro-activities
Regenerative City DxCC at Tongji University, Shanghai (25m, 2018) – cities in a larger context – health of place = health of people – urban-rural reonnection
The skills we need (Elisava, Barcelona, 2m, 2017) – the most important quality in a designer? curiosity – a trick to get head? get out of the studio and into the world
Design for a Bioregion (AtelierLUMA, France, 2m, 2017) – making as connecting – especially with people who are not like you – making as connecting with the land – few of the answers we need will be found in peoples’ heads
Commoning Workshop (Museum für angewandte Kunst, Wien, 9m, 2018) – why we need a new ‘story of place’ – connecting small actions for large-scale change
Future Ways of Living (Milan Triennale, 65m, 2017) – why we need a new story – signals of re-connection (with the land, and with each other) – bioregions as a living ‘frame’ for our work – co-operation platforms as a way for diverse people to work together
The City and Its Bioregion (IAAC, Barcelona’s FabLab, 35m, 2016) – why should an architect or urban planner even think about meatballs? – a ‘smart city’ that does not think about food will soon be a dead city – design ingredients for “Back To The Land 2.0”
City-Rural Connections (Abadir, Sicily, 3m, 2018) – what steps could we take to reconnect city and rural? – how might relational design enhance or multiply these connections?
From Biomedicine to Bioregion: The Geographies of a Care Economy (UC Berkeley, California, Dean’s Lecture, 1h, 2016) – why caring for place is a story that reconnects people, health, and context – from Small to Big: signals of transformation – going with the flow
Thinking Like A Forest: A Design Agenda for Bioregions (School of Visual Arts, New York, 50m, 2015) – what does a “leave things better economy” mean in practice? – how designers are contributing to this new economy, right now
(TEXT 1) CARE, VALUE, PLACE: DESIGN RESEARCH IN CHINA In April, I began work as an adjunct (visiting) professor at Tongji University (College of Design and Innovation) in Shanghai. As part of the appointment process, I submitted this research statement. It describes the three research topics that will be the focus of my work in China: Care. Value. Place | Urban-Rural Reconnection and Rural Social Innovation | Knowledge Ecologies and Scale. (This research statement text accompanies my recent paper for the journal She Ji, Bioregioning: Pathways to Urban-Rural Reconnection )
(TEXT 2) RE-WILDING THE BAUHAUS To mark its centenary this year, the Bauhaus has published Design Rehearsals: Conversations About Bauhaus Lessons. My contribution (which is here) is a proposal for a new Vorkurs, or Foundation Course. It would foster ecological literacy, and a whole-systems understanding of the world.
(TEXT 3) SOCIAL FOOD FORUM: THE TAKEAWAYS As a legacy of #Matera2019 in Italy, a meeting of 15 social food curators met in Matera for the launch of the Social Food Forum and Social Food Atlas. We discussed two main topics: how to describe thedifferent kinds of value created by social food projects; and, how to do more of this work, with more partners, and in more places, in the near future. Here are our main findings.
(NEW BOOK) DESIGN AS A TOOL FOR TRANSITION: THE ATELIER LUMA APPROACH By connecting the ‘what is?’, with the ‘what if?’, designers and artists at Atelier Luma are discovering new kinds of value among the social and ecological assets of the Camargue bioregion. Their focus is on making connections and supporting relationships at a system-wide scale. For their new book, I contributed a chapter on “Making as Connecting”
TWO MEET-UPS (update per 1-July: The July Meet-Up has started. The August Meet-Up is sold out) The I’m hosting two week-long meet-ups – in July and August – for designers, project curators, grad students, researchers, or writers. If you’re working on a plan, project or thesis, we have a couple of places left for each week. The dates are: July: arrive Monday 01, depart Monday 08 August: arrive Thursday 22, depart Thursday 29 Read more about our meet-ups – including the application process :
ONE OFF-SITE The off-site you may have missed is the one for Your Team! – because it is not yet organised. Starting in September, we’re keen to host single teams, here at our place in France. If you’re working on a strategy, project, or plan, and could use a a change of context to meet, create, and connect, do drop us an email meeting@thackara.com. As an option, I can do project feedback, 1:1s, or crit your pitch.
In an Ecological Civilization, Place is our Professor
I gave a plenary talk (by video) to the China Eco-Civilization Research and Promotion Association (CECRPA) Conference, 17 November 2019.
My focus was an ecological design training platform for designers in China.
中国生态文明研究与促进会（CECRPA）
会议11月17日：约翰·萨卡拉（John Thackara）全体会议 生态创新培训
In the last 100 years, there have been three eras of design.
During the Industrial Era, design was powerful driver in the rise of mass consumer societies. Design made short-life products desirable to millions of people.
This era saw extraordinary economic growth in money terms.
But on the negative side, as we now know to our cost, this energy-intense and extractive economy depleted non-renewable resources. It also caused a