Designing with Birds
Designing with Birds: Image depicting automatic identification of tree structure and bird habitats. Image by the authors.
Contributors: Alexander Holland; Stanislav Roudavski.
Presented at the Politicologenetmaal Virtual Conference Workshop: ‘Challenging Anthropocentrism in Political Science: Gender Race Intersectionality and the More-Than-Human’ from 3-4 June 2021 at Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands.
Tags: #interspecies #birds #trees #artificial-habitats #point-clouds
This project contributes to the theory and practice of design as well as to the discourse in political theory. Recent work in animal studies and environmental humanities seeks to empower nonhuman lifeforms within interspecies communities. Such emancipation is crucial in the conditions of the environmental crisis that undermines all life. A practical example of the urgent need for such participation is environmental management. This project seeks to include nonhuman knowledge practices and creative contributions. We illustrate the implication of this approach through a case-study that designs ‘artificial trees’ at an environmental restoration site near Canberra, Australia.
The outcomes of the project confirm that humans and nonhumans can design together. Our analysis also indicates that products of this designing can create more equitable communities and help their members live better lives. Our argument is that humans can only improve the conditions of co-living through an approach that invites contributions from birds trees and others. This is a novel framing of design in many fields with important policy and practical implications.
Design materials and the theoretical contributions of this project have been selected for presentation at the Politicologenetmaal Virtual Conference Workshop: ‘Challenging Anthropocentrism in Political Science: Gender Race Intersectionality and the More-Than-Human’ 3-4 June 2021. This work contributes to strategic planning by Campus Management at the University of Melbourne and featured in consultation and planning workshops in 2021. The project is funded by a grant from ACT Parks and Conservation Service and its components were shown in conferences and design activities run by this organisation in 2019-2021 particularly in application to urban regeneration at the Molonglo site.
Publications
Designing with Birds for Multispecies Living (forthcoming)
Related Projects
Collaborators
Non-humans
- Large old trees
- Birds
- Superb Parrot (Polytelis swainsonii)
- Swift Parrot (Lathamus discolor)
- Little Eagle (Hieraaetus morphnoides)
- Gang-Gang cockatoo (Callocephalon fimbriatum)
- Molongo region
Humans
Organisations
- ACT Parks and Conservation Service
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