Gift Exchange & Sustainability
STUDENT DIRECTED WORKSHOP AT EMILY CARR DESIS LAB
SOCIAL INNOVATION HAPPENS FROM THE BOTTOM UP.
THE EMILY CARR DESIS LAB EXEMPLIFIES “BOTTOM UP” WITH STUDENT DIRECTED, A SERIES OF RESEARCH WORKSHOPS THAT ARE DEVELOPED AND HOSTED BY STUDENTS.
MY ROLE: STUDENT RESEARCHER
FACULTY PARTNER: EUGENIA BERTULIS
Gift Exchange & Sustainability was a co-creation workshop that I ran in collaboration with DESIS lab at Emily Carr University, as a part of my Master thesis methodology. I conducted it to explore ideas regarding expanding the culture of sustainability in a community. For my case study, I linked underlying philosophies of green thinking and notions of sustainable development to rituals that have been part of Persian culture throughout history. For example, in Iranian culture, Nowruz, the greatest cultural event in Iran, is celebrated as the beginning of the new year and marks the first day of the spring. There are many activities that people do to celebrate this event such as seed growing, planting, gift giving and connecting with family and friends. Introducing cross-cultural ritual to the participants - even if a new concept - build a desirable context that bridge across cultures and support new rituals of caring and giving.
Workshop Action Plan
The focus of this Workshop was to explore the concepts of planting and gift giving. A number of hand-made origami packets designed with the Persian calligraphy and poetry were distributed among the participants as a gift to begin the conversations and activities.
This was followed by a presentation about Nowruz, Gift Economy and Eco-centric design versus Anthropocentric design. The following image presents that in anthropocentric view (left) humans dominate the natural world; in the bio-or ecocentric view (right) man is part of and participates in the natural world.
Several open-ended questions were to spark brainstorming and begin designing and making gifts with the supplied materials:
- How might redesigning cultural activities trigger a change in behaviors and influence culture of sustainability?
- How might we design a gift of seeds or plants in order to reshape the relation of people with the nature?
At the end of the workshop participants talked about their experience and shared their stories in a round of discussions. Many creative works, deep thoughts and ideas around seed planting and gift making were collected to inspire my MDes thesis.
