The INSECT Summercamp 2022 is the pilot project for an annual gathering of practitioners, students, and researchers to investigate the transition from human-centered design to life-centered design and lifestyles. In 2022 we designed and manufactured a facade installation to explore "designing-for" insects and other organisms in an urban setting, and investigated embodied and co-creative ways to "being-with" them in the countryside.
Cross-border/international
Denmark
Other
United Kingdom
Member State(s), Western Balkans and other countries: Other
Dilan Ozkan, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As an individual in partnership with other persons
First name: Svenja Last name: Keune Gender: Female Nationality: Germany Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Tjørnehusvej 5 Town: Hvalsø Postal code: 4330 Country: Denmark Direct Tel:+49 1578 5900801 E-mail:svenja.keune@gmail.com Website:http://svenja-keune.de/en/
First name: Asya Last name: Ilgün Gender: Female Nationality: Turkey Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Humboldtstraße 12 Town: Graz Postal code: 8010 Country: Austria Direct Tel:+43 660 1411699 E-mail:zeliha.ilgun@uni-graz.at Website:https://distributeddesign.eu/talent/asya-ilgun/
First name: Dilan Last name: Ozkan Gender: Female Nationality: Turkey Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Tjørnehusvej 5 Town: Hvalsø Postal code: 4330 Country: Denmark Direct Tel:+44 7798 691165 E-mail:d.ozkan2@newcastle.ac.uk Website:https://www.mycologyforarchitecture.com/
First name: Laurin Last name: Kilbert Gender: Male Nationality: Germany Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: sachsenring 16 Town: Hildesheim Postal code: 31137 Country: Germany Direct Tel:+49 1515 6334389 E-mail:laurin.kilbert@googlemail.com Website:https://symbioticspaces.net/
The pilot project I.N.S.E.C.T Summercamp 2022 investigates strategies for a life-centered design, to build factual and tacit knowledge and community. Since biodiversity is declining globally, the summercamp is a place for scholars, students and practitioners of various disciplines to investigate creative approaches to design for multispecies cohabitation in our shared ecosystems. The acronym I.N.S.E.C.T. grew from our practice: An INterSpecies Exploration through biodigital Craft and manufacturing Technologies. Here it’s used as a term to embrace small organisms that do not commonly attract human attention.
The camp was organized by Asya Ilgun, Dilan Özkan, Laurin Kilbert and Svenja Keune working across 3 EU countries and was conducted in two parts:
#1 Designing for native insect species, using 3D printing of clay, Open Source Sensors, textile and living mycelium. During 10 days of work the 9 participants developed and fabricated a living prototype to provide habitat for insects and mycelium. It’s now installed and monitored at the façade of the Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment at Newcastle University. The 9 participants came from 4 different continents to mediate between the needs of architecture, insects, fungi, technology, crafts and humans.
#2 Being with the more-than-human, in Hvalso in the Danish countryside, complementary to the urban context of the first part. The program of workshops, talks and performances was organized through a dynamic process of co-creation by the 35 participants. Exploring sustainability as a process rather than an outcome and questioning the paradigms of industrialized societies towards nature was at the heart of the second part.
The I.N.S.E.C.T SC aims to form an international vibrant community of like-minded researchers, students, and practitioners that exceeds the duration of the camp, where exchanges among disciplines and knowledge traditions can thrive to nurture a culture of ecological kinship.
co-creation
co-habitation
life-centered-design
bio-digital fabrication
community-building
The summercamp 2022 is grounded in the widely recognized problem of declining insect diversity, which has been identified by the global scientific community as the number one threat to all terrestrial ecosystems on Earth and is partly caused by urbanization practices [1]. Business-as-usual urbanization prioritizes rapid development over creating resilient and self-organising infrastructures to be able to host the growing human population (https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/).
The I.N.S.E.C.T. Summercamp program is and will be further developed to:
-raise awareness and empower people to take action and initiative,
-integrate complexity into material-led practices for sustainable urban and rural ecologies,
-co-create with participants from various fields for non-hierarchical, collective, and self-motivated learning (related to SDG 4 and 11) [2],
-employ design as a strategy to re-design ourselves and our practices,
-use local materials such as clay in combination with regenerative microorganisms such as mycelial fungi, and the technologies to create urban structures that can serve functionality for both humans and non-human city dwellers,
-integrate biological sciences into design practice and education,
-address and nurture urban and rural ecological niches (related to SDGs 11 and 15) [2],
-strengthen the sharing and impact of design innovations through involving education and dissemination in the community [2].
-address the complexity of sustainability issues beyond traditional methods and institutional setups. In order to deal with ecosystem decline and its contributing variables, these methodologies must be integrated from the very beginning of design training.
[1] Goulson, D. Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse; Random House, 2021.
[2] UN General Assembly, Transforming our world : the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, 21 October 2015, A/RES/70/1, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57b6e3e44.html
We achieved a high quality of experience by actively engaging in materials and techniques that are deeply rooted in human cultures: textiles, clay, and natural fibers. We developed in group work an urban façade installation that provides multi-species by critically and effectively employing technologies, by sharing technical skills with each other. Part 2 was a cohabitation experience where people lived and worked together around the clock, opening their senses and imaginations, preparing food, walking through the forest, talking around the campfire, writing down their experiences and sharing them, such as through a poem (see our video: https://youtu.be/xhO8oG12jWs). Through co-creation, trust among participants resulted in significantly influential outcomes [1]. The atmosphere was a major influence on our experiences and memories of “designing-for” and “being-with”. One participant mentioned, “...communal laughter, ambition, and a true sense of equal influence,”. The networking and community aspect was also mentioned, “I know now that there is an active and helpful community that I can always reach out to when working with multi-species projects, and I feel more confident about engaging in such research.” The feedback shows that we met our goals regarding the community. One participant reflects on the theoretical input and how this influenced their work, “It definitely made me reflect on my next steps. The camp has also expanded my knowledge and ways of observing in massive ways compared to the short time we were present.” The initiative can be exemplary in the way it explores sustainability as a process to reinvent our practices and ourselves, rather than an outcome. It empowers and connects students, practitioners and researchers by co-creating the experiences they want to engage in and grow through.
[1] Torfing, J.; Røiseland, A.; Sørensen, E. Transforming the Public Sector into an Arena for Co-Creation: Barriers, Drivers, Benefits and Ways Forward; 2016.
Our initiatives foster inclusion by:
-obtaining external funding to offer Part 1 free of charge and Part 2 for a small fee on a sliding scale,
-opening the registration for Part 2 to everyone who was interested, incl. partners and family members with kids,
-supporting, empowering and connecting students, practitioners and researchers through pre-camp activities, personal communication, and support in co-creating the experiences the individuals wanted to engage in and grow through.
There seemed to be a certain level of comfort, curiosity and willingness to venture into challenges and let to creating meaningful experiences. We found that, during the camp, co-creation enabled us to have a more emergent and mutualistic social structure. People took responsibility for themselves and cared empathically for others. People’s capacities naturally fluctuated, but the “organism” as a whole could function by having someone who could be ready and willing to step in to manage the flow when others needed to step out to recharge. This happened organically, instead of through a pre-planned program.
The initiative can be exemplary in the way it
-cared for the participants pre-camp, during camp and post-camp,
-generated the opportunity for personal growth: Longer-term and potentially life-changing effects were described by several co-creators, “after cooking vegetarian at the camp, I actually became vegetarian after that,” and, “receiving positive personal feedback was really transformative to me and encouraged me to lead a 2-hour workshop in Berlin.”
-integrated embodiment methods: Embodied practices were especially powerful memories since they often cost some willpower and effort: “The primal play workshop was memorable as it provided the most resistance and really pushed my boundaries – as a result, its outcome was the most transformative. I'm contemplating how I could incorporate this way of acting/being in the rest of my life.”
Even though the I.N.S.E.C.T. Summercamp 2022 mainly involved design-related practitioners, students, and researchers, we found it important to engage with neighbours, local communities, and everyone who showed interest. Citizens benefit from the project through:
-a workshop at the HBBE Museum in Newcastle that shared the knowledge generated in Part 1 and where citizens could work with clay, fibres and mycelium https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/events-great-north-museum-hancock/e-vegvke,
-inviting neighbours to events e.g., the celebration with skits, tastings, performances, and poems, at the end of Part 2,
-presentations in various contexts (see our list of impacts in the appendix),
-transitioning from being designers towards becoming agents of change,
-involving neighbours in documenting and photographing the facade installation, to analyze the impact of rain as well as the insect interaction with the structure
As a response to our outreach and initiatives, we are working on increasing the involvement of local communities and the general public.
Human stakeholders:
We gathered ca. 40 students, practitioners, and researchers: 3 Professors, 3 Senior Lecturers, 2 researchers, 6 PhD candidates, 4 artists, 14 graduate students,1 undergraduate, 2 practitioners in mycology and economics. 3 from the North, 1 South America, 1 Taiwan, 1 Australia, the rest from Europe. Through the various outreach activities, we are attracting interns. like-minded peers and local communities and aim to attract scientists (natural and social) as well as human neighbour who has a stake in the local assemblage of beings.
Multispecies stakeholders:
We approached insects by focusing on our human capacities to sense, perceive, and imagine; they didn’t necessarily play an active part. Methods, such as Embodied Ideation [1] let us feel, express, and imagine ourselves as another by e.g. making insect-inspired costumes and exploring them on a “perception walk”. Primal Play, an embodied relational practice in which humans meet through movement, breath and sound, brought us closer to communicating beyond words. A blindfolded forest exploration brought us close to non-visual experiences, fermented leftovers to our sense of taste, and observations with magnifying tools into the scale of insects. We hence approached insects from a “liminal intimacy” and chose to recognize and respect their autonomy by letting them be [2]. Post camp, insects have evolved to direct stakeholders. The installation is a physical meeting point, an intervention that fosters relationships with insects and their local ecosystem.
[1] Wilde, D.; Vallgårda, A.; Tomico, O. Embodied Design Ideation Methods: Analysing the Power of Estrangement. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems; CHI ’17; Association for Computing Machinery: New York, NY, USA, 2017; pp 5158–5170. https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025873.
[2] Nimmo, R. From Over the Horizon: Animal Alterity and Liminal Intimacy Beyond the Anthropomorphic Embrace. 2016.
The following disciplines and knowledge fields were reflected in our initiative:
-Biofabrication and natural science: social insects, parametric design, clay-3d-printing, insect-mycelium relations, computational technologies (Asya Ilgün)
-Design research: biodesign, architecture, bio-digital fabrication, living materials (Dilan Özkan)
-Art and design practice: biofabrication, clay 3d-printing, multispecies design (Laurin Kilbert)
-Artistic research: multispecies perspectives to design, textile design, auto-ethnography (Svenja Keune)
As a result of our initiative, we are now an active community that through the diverse backgrounds and disciplines of its members has expanded the knowledge fields we are engaging in and will continue to do so with the upcoming initiatives e.g., the I.N.S.E.C.T. Summercamp 2023.
Our initiative is innovative in the following ways:
-It brings people together to improvise, connect, play, question, struggle, discuss, make, and imagine alternative ways of designing (designing for) in an urban setting and ways of being (being with) in a rural setting
-In designing for insects within the urban sphere and being with insects in the countryside the connection of the different realities, needs and standards built the context of the shared learning experience. This differs a lot from common design workshops, where participants are invited to work out already existing concepts realizing e.g. an architectural structure that needs skilled students to finalize.
-It employs an understanding that sustainability is a process and uses design as a strategy to design that process. The importance of the connection between our practices and our beings is emphasized by the Inner Development Goals and the Metadesign Manifesto “a(A)dapting to change must include re-inventing our practices AND ourselves” [1,2].
-By combining freeform crocheting, 3d printing of clay and mycelium, monitoring via sensors and a microbiome study, parametric design and meditation, perception exercises, fermentation, active imagination, and embodied ideation
-In being with a larger group were invited to co-create by strategizing and developing their own content of interest. They learned what it means to live within a thriving ecosystem filled with insects and other critters.
[1] Inner Development Goals. https://www.innerdevelopmentgoals.org/
[2] Our-Manifesto | Metadesigners Network 2022. https://metadesigners.org/Our-Manifesto
The INSECT Summercamp 2022 was a pilot project and will become an annual initiative that will be adapted and refined by the alumni (I.N.S.E.C.T. community) which will develop and facilitate the next iterations together. The methodology and learnings of the Summercamp will be published (see our list of impacts in the appendix) and can easily be transferred to other places, groups, and contexts. Approaches that can be replicated or transferred through:
-Exploring sustainability as a process rather than an outcome and understanding it as a behavioral attitude that is implemented through design [1]. It is a process to reinvent our practices and ourselves, to develop new hybrid lifestyles and ways of being for ourselves that inspire others.
-Developing engagement programs and their formats that are based on human co-creation and where hierarchy is not related to experience, status, or age, but is connected to a genuine curiosity, capacity, and willingness to learn to take responsibility and leadership.
-Exploring new approaches that are inspired by ecofeminist scholars into design research, education, and practice in which a sensitization towards living beings becomes fundamental [2,3] to advance the general production of scientific knowledge.
-including embodied practices to expand the range bio- and multispecies design methods , which form the basis for the development of tacit knowledge, gained through observation and experience. The goal of embodied practices is to anchor our experience in a specific, local context in both the design work and in everyday living.
-Integrating post-anthropocentric perspectives into design education, design practice and everyday lives.
[1] Gatto G, McCardle JR (2019) Multispecies Design and Ethnographic Practice: Following Other-Than-Humans as a Mode of Exploring Environmental Issues. Sustainability 11(18):5032. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11185032
[2] Haraway, D. J. Staying with the Trouble: Making
General:
- Bringing factual and tacit knowledge together to engage in the complex task of designing for human and insect cohabitation with biologically grown materials.
- Understanding that such tasks cannot be accomplished alone and demand multi-disciplinary groups and shared response-abilities
- Introducing and integrating multispecies perspectives into specifically though not exclusively design education
- Combining scientific and artistic methodologies and approaches.
Part 1: Designing-for
- Invoking skill sharing and distributed student/participant leadership via a design-led workshop that aims to rethink what a building skin could be when the needs of native insects are considered from the very beginning of the design stage.
- Integration of urban animals such as wild bees who are expanding their habitats towards Northern parts of the world due to climate change, as the built environment stakeholders.
Part 2: Being-with
- Using co-creation as a strategy for organizational purposes, promoting innovative outcomes within the multispecies design, and forming a community because co-creation strengthens ownership of solutions and trust among participants.
- Being-with relates to ecofeminist philosophies and practices and draws from embodied methods that create personal experiences, bodily sensations and movement.
- Melding human and non-human design methods by developing engagement programs/formats that allow us to engage with other species more deeply.
The construction industry is one of the air pollutants, with “39% of energy and process-related carbon dioxide emissions in 2018, 11% of which resulted from manufacturing building materials and products such as steel, cement and glass” [1]. Replacing common building materials with biological ones as a burgeoning approach in the architecture field requires the development of new design strategies and fabrication methods. „Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems ...“ is the 15th goal of the Global Goals For Sustainable Development by the UN. With this purpose in mind, our initiative addresses the challenges including the decrease in biodiversity, suitable fabrication methods of living materials, and the need for expertise in designing with/for other species in the built environment. We address:
- the improvement of biodiversity: Man-made ecosystems risk biodiversity and cause potential problems by reducing the interaction between organisms. Interlacing multi-species keeps the ecosystems resilient. Our initiative questions how we, as designers/architects, can relate to other species and how our designs can sustain and support life. Therefore, we assembled a prototype wall that is designed to host organisms, especially insects, as an alternative to traditional building elements.
- Material Bio-circularity: We used biodegradable materials such as clay, mycelium composites,
crocheted wool and flax fibers. They are all digestible by the surrounding ecosystem.
- Material Locality: We aimed to use local fungus species that can streamline the material procurement process, reducing the time and costs associated with sourcing materials.
I.N.S.E.C.T. searches for a science-based reconnection to nature and the inhabitants of the shared ecosystems through co-creational workshops and thereby aims for a co-created vision of a livable future.
The first edition of the Insect Summercamp has been conducted in 2022, with 44 participants over 1 month. Co-creation (2,5 months pre-camp) was set up on digital platforms like Discord, Miro, Zoom, several Messengers, which are still in use. Reconnecting with nature was implemented in the:
- the design & fabrication of a complex installation on co-habitation with other species,
- being-with other species in the countryside in Denmark with a focus on more-than-human workshops, presentations, skits, research, observations
initiation of an international community on multispecies design, architecture & anthropology.
Post-camp progress has been made on some issues from part one:
- 2 workshop organizers and 3 former participants work on a follow-up prototype. With architectural students, biologists from the Uni Graz, and an art collective in Graz, we're developing 3D clay-printed wall modules with mycelium composites for harboring native insects. Complementary, textile clay hybrids are being prepared for installation in Hvalsø.
Impact of the initiative (read complete doc: INSECT2022_Impact):
- presentation at conferences, and symposia: Knit-a-verse Conference, Amsterdam, contextile TEXTILE TALKS Educational Futures, Guimarães, Portugal, Living Textiles Architectures Symposium. Newcastle-upon-Tyne UK, Intern. Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Lecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava, Phytophilia Design Conversation (online), Panel Talk at the Global Biosummit 6.0
- education: Presentation at the regular research days in the Insitute of Biology, University of Graz, course context in the Technical University of Graz.
- initiatives in progress and upcoming: IWT 2 Installation, Collaboration with Beeing-Beecoming artistic initiative in Club Hybrid, Graz, AT, Paper presentation at UIA Conference, Copenhagen, DK, Workshops, Panel Discussion and Film release at UIA side event in Copenhagen, DK - I.N.S.E.C.T. Summercamp 2023.
The camp was built on collaboration and co-creation, and it brought together students, practitioners, and researchers from various backgrounds, nationalities, and ages. In light of the co-creation approach and the students' capacities, a few of them took on leading roles and demonstrated and expanded their skills in project management, as well as how to use digital and physical tools, methodologies, and platforms. Given that everyone was involved before, during, and after camp, they all improved their skills in planning, communication, facilitation, collaboration/co-creation, and self-leadership. They also learned how to organize and host meetings, how to ask for help, how to manifest activities they were interested in, how to cook meals for 35 people, and how to live together for a week. We exchanged and investigated strategies for designing for and being with other living organisms, such as insects, well beyond the human perspective. This included computational design (3d-modeling, parametric design), 3d-printing, monitoring strategy including sensors and microbial community sampling, and embodied ideation methods [1] perception exercises, dance, improvisation, imagination, meditation, processing local clay, tasting the smell of ants, observing, crocheting, fermenting, and many other activities. Co-creating a summer camp from the roots up allowed us to experiment with and stay with complexity, ambiguity, sudden changes, challenges, and limitations while being accountable for our own experiences. All of these soft skills are crucial when dealing with the increasing complexities and challenges that we as humans and designers face as a result of species loss and climate change.
[1] Wilde, D.; Vallgårda, A.; Tomico, O. Embodied Design Ideation Methods: Analysing the Power of Estrangement. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems; CHI ’17; Association for Computing Machinery: New York, NY, USA, 2017; pp 5158–5170.
