TRANSPECIES DESIGN
O V E R L O O K F I E L D S C H O O L 2 0 2 2
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TRANSPECIES DESIGN
2022 Overlook Field School explored Transpecies Design through an investigation of tools; not hammers, tractors, and scythes, but noses, eyes, ears, and souls. We embraced the reality that we are constantly translating signals - not only the vibration of sound and light waves of color, but also the fleeting nature of life and the urgency of survival.
We embraced our emotional knowledge and cultural values to explore non-human futures. We allowed for grief and complexity and conflict and ugliness, along with huge quantities of beauty and joy and laughter. We sought ways to sense non-human communities, their bonds and beings, without projecting human desire and design.
Resident Artist Instructor : Nina Elder
Field Assistants: Kennedy Rauh Celia Hensey
Field School Coordinator: Nancy Silvers
Overlook Field School Program Director: Liska Chan
Field School Participants:
Phoebe Chuang, Holly Phares, Tristan Matlock, Grace Youngblood, Madison Sanders, Jake Brostis, Candi Rosario, Peter Olson, Tressa Cummings, Evan Kwiecien
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RESEARCH
SENSORY EXPERIENCES
Through a month-long investigation, we learned from grasses, fawns, coal veins, and rivers about how they respond to dynamics in the environment, shift often, seek comfort, and change. We centered personal knowing, constantly interrogated our desire to label things, cite data, and prioritize others’ expertise over our experience. We moved beyond what we can read, recite, and be tested upon, and into a place of where we can know with our bodies.
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SEEING I APPEARANCE
How might we see with other parts of our bodies? With our elbows, with our knee caps, through our fingertips? How do we expand our “visual field” and move beyond the messages we are processing through our human eyes? And how might we be seen by other than human species?
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LISTENING I COMMUNICATING
There are waves and vibrations moving through the spaces all around us, within and without our decibel range. There is a resonance we are responding to, knowingly and not. How might we consider forms of communication beyond language? How do we listen deeply with our whole bodies?
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SHELTERING I PROVIDING
How does shelter provide protection and what is the shelter protecting? What needs protection? What symbiotic relationships might emerge from this sheltering and providing protection? Through an exploration of scales, materials, and ideas, we stepped out of human-centered concepts of shelter to embrace alternative opportunities for refuge.
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SMELLING I AROMA
As humans, we generally consider smelling as a perception of odors through our noses, or olfactory nerves. But what if we leaned into a more informal definition of smelling, to be aware of a situation without having to be told about it? What if we considered the memory, relationship, and environment of the source of the aroma? What stories would be told?
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ASH ARCHIVE
OBJECTS
Each student contributed at least 5 objects. Each contribution had to explore a sense; sight, sound, taste, smell, touch, or spirituality. One contribution had to be an unmodified natural object
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ACCESSION NOTES
Each student contributed an accession note to accompany each contribution to the archive. These notes were an opportunity for the contributor to express a personal, subjective, and creative multispecies description.
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THE WORKBOOK
Every place is evidence of transformation, loss, resilience, and renewal. Every thing is a legacy of disruption and creation. Every moment constitutes equal parts undoing and emergence. This book is intended to help you connect to change.
Through exercises, prompts, and invitations that can be done by anyone, anywhere, this is a field guide to your dynamic environment.
This workbook is inspired by Overlook, a Northeastern Pennsylvania landscape owned by the Fuller family. This place expresses its enduring truths through railroad tracks, deer paths, coal veins, glacial scrapes, bird songs, meadow blossoms, and tractor furrows. These elements ask to be seen closely, heard patiently, inhaled deeply,
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With your hands or a rock, dig a line. The line should connect two places. Line it with rocks and clay. Fill it with water. Every place is evidence of transformation, loss, resilience, and renewal. Every thing is a legacy of disruption and creation. Every moment constitutes equal parts undoing and emergence. This book is intended to help you connect to change. Through exercises, prompts, and invitations that can be done by anyone, anywhere, this is a field guide to your dynamic environment. This workbook is inspired by Overlook, a Northeastern Pennsylvania estate owned by the Fuller family. This place expresses its enduring truths through railroad tracks, deer paths, coal veins, glacial scrapes, bird songs, meadow blossoms, and tractor furrows. These elements ask to be seen closely, heard patiently, inhaled deeply, touched and tasted and trusted, greeted and grieved. We humbly invite you to experience change. - Overlook Field School 2022 In an area dense with bushes comb the earth’s hair with your hands and body and make a trail. Find container. Write note to someone. Bury it in spot where you think it will be found in fifty years. Picture it as historical document. Time Walk Find and flat where spend time in. First, familiarize yourself with surroundings and, eyes closed, ash, coming Self Portrait Perspectives Materials Paper; pen, pencil, or other drawing implement Instructions Draw yourself as you might be seen by: Yourself, in the mirror Your best friend Another person, very far away A fly A mouse A migrating bird A rock A cat, asleep on your bed Your bed A pet goldfish A deep-sea fish with no eyes The air in your lungs A tree you’ve climbed The last bug you stepped on A ghost A peanut butter and jelly sandwich The stars at the moment of your birth The wind
touched and tasted and trusted, greeted and grieved. We humbly invite you to experience change. - Overlook Field School 2022 Futurevision Flipbook Materials ¼ stack of 3” Post-It notes (25 sheets), pen or marker Instructions Think of a place you know well. On the bottom Post-It, draw that place as simply as possible. On the top Post-It, draw that place as it might look 1,000 years in the future. Then, starting from the bottom, draw a series of scenes connecting the present and future. Keep the stack of Post-Its stuck together as you draw, so the edges stay aligned. When you are done, flip the stack to watch a possible future flash by! Write a thank you note to an Ash tree from a non-human point of view. This could be from the perspective of another tree, an animal, an insect or anything else! Perspective Take time to reflect the die‐off of the ash forests around the United States and their ecological impact. might species experience changes? Write sentence draw small sketch of how they would feel. What does loss mean to you? How does this meaning change or stay the same in terms of Ash tree extinction? Ask a few friends to write a statement about a subject of your choosing. Arrange these statements to create a poem. Creative Mourning preserving) through choice of creative media. This could be small painting that depicts the intricate leaves poetic dance that captures their embodied spirit.
THE READER
A casual compendium of information that informs the contribution to the archive. Unlike other collections of museological research documents, this reader prioritizes sensory information, bodily experience, and poetic exploration.
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Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes Department of Landscape Architecture University of Oregon landarch.uoregon.edu fuller.uoregon.edu 2022