Arts, Design and Ecology Lab
Ecology forms a central theme within various art and design practices. Climate change, resource depletion, and the loss of biodiversity are issues we face daily, and the need to respond to them is becoming increasingly urgent. At the same time, tackling these issues is becoming increasingly complex, given that we are part of a society in which ecological, social, and economic dimensions are often disconnected from one another. Although more sustainable alternatives exist that take planetary boundaries into account, it proves difficult to make collective work of this. This points to an impoverishment of our collective imagination, the capacity to visualize, share, and shape possible future scenarios.
The new R&I lab, with a focus on ecology, aims to strategically deploy this imagination. By employing design and imagination as relational and tangible instruments, the lab seeks to set societal and ecological systems in motion and enable new forms of connectedness and transition. In doing so, the lab endorses the mission of the New European Bauhaus (NEB) to facilitate the transition to a beautiful, sustainable, and inclusive society through art and design. Within the NEB, future imagination is described as the engine of complex transition processes, particularly those towards the European Green Deal. Through the R&I lab, LUCA School of Arts can position itself as an institution that investigates how art and design function as a driving force for complex transition processes. Ecology is understood here as both the study and the awareness of the interconnectedness between all living beings (including humans) and their environment (both physical and social). It also encompasses the search for ways of living that keep these relationships healthy, resilient, and just, now and in the future.
Methods such as More-than-Human Design, Material-Driven Design, Situated Design, Participatory Design, Systemic Design, Behavioral Design, and Speculative Design will be applied and further developed within this lab.
