My research and teaching raise questions around the social, ecological and material sustainability of human action, and the role of design therein.
My research and teaching raise questions around the social, ecological and material sustainability of human action, and the role of design therein. I use experimental methods to examine how embodied engagement with the materiality of the world can assist people in thinking in new ways; develop new possibilities for future action that can be implemented today; alternative responses to challenges we face, whether these are planetary in scale or concern the nature within us. I use performative and probiotic methods, participatory and speculative research through design, to open up new ways of thinking, through moving, making and doing. I undertake pedagogical research, to infrastructure new roles for design in the twenty-first century, including through biodesign and design with living things. At the same time, I challenge the role of designer as a maker of things, products, cultural artefacts or services, positing that the role of the designer is to examine relationships and dependencies, and do as little as possible: to leverage participatory and co-creative design methods to help people to infrastructure their own agency—to understand what they need to regenerate the world around them, sand take action o that humans and non-humans alike might flourish. Much of my research, teaching and methodological development is focused on food (from multispecies perspectives).