more-than-human thinking (the space in between Us)
This piece has been written as part of my submission for Melbourne Design Week, Design Broadcasters for 2022.
My philosophy of more-than-human-thinking is summarised by this short poem:
As a consultant, I alone know nothing.
But we two, the land and I, and us three, the land, you and me -
well, now we may see.
More than human thinking is the space between us that life resides; the vital part, without which there is no Us.
The space between us is made up of many things, some that we can visualise and others that we can only sense, but these are nonetheless important.
Filling the space between you and me are relationships, landscapes, light, air, sound, perhaps a table full of shared food. It is these non-human elements that sustain us, draw us into a space, and invite us to enjoy ourselves.
Without these vital connectors, human life simply wouldn’t exist. What are houses without destinations, and destinations without the journey between them? Also called the commute, passageways are the spaces we travel through to live. Lock down showed us the spaces with healthy connecting capacity. Parks with grand trees for shelter, spaces with soft grass to sit, water bodies, places where birds sing. At our most dire, humans sought the spaces in between to connect to themselves and each other.
To adopt more-than-human-thinking in design is to consider everything between two humans as having a capacity to connect, and valuing the strength of that connection.
If selected, for my piece I’d like to explore writing an essay in the form of prose poetry, accompanied by a visual representation.
Below are some points I’d like to explore:
What are humans without our environment & without connectors? Nodes adrift.
When the space in between Non-human elements becomes a priority, urban design improves and humans are all the better for it. Where more-than-human elements are allowed to emerge, bus stops can become bee-hotels, alleyways become art galleries, nature strips flourish as community gardens. How much of our lives are spent travelling THROUGH
That which is not-human are the only things that can possibly connect us, so what would a city that prioritises those things look like?
But, let’s go further than that. What if the space in between us was an extension of humans. What are we without the water that runs through the soil to aquifers, the trees that give us air and the bees that pollinate our crops? Can we really say that we’re separate from our environment? More than human thinking is allowing our selfness to extend to not only our human community, but our non-human community.
Dark Emu in the stars - Bruce Pascoe - Dark Emu tells indigenous groups when to collect emu eggs
The space in between allowed us to see the first black hole
The space between The Milky Way/water course/big river in the sky, shows the shape of The Emu
