Gardening as Design's Paradigm Shift: The Regenerative Textile Garden
Brynna Justice, Creative Sustainability
Design, as a field, tends to be expansive: the practice stretches over and between graphics we see, to the objects we hold, the things we wear, and even screens we touch. All of this “design” exists within material, economic, and social systems that scale in complexity to the point where it is difficult to imagine them, even as a designer. Even if the result of what a designer produces isn’t viewed or used by millions, designers often exist as creatives to produce within systems that solely value consumption and production. To be a designer in the current day is to “create within” these global and complex systems, but what if there was a way to design locally within Otaniemi?
So, we grew a textile and dye garden. By asking what’s possible of the land locally, the Regenerative Textile Garden supports new creative practices within textile, fiber, ink, paint, and dye making. We hope to develop an art and design community that learns to grow, process, and create materials right here: encouraging a material literacy that looks beyond globalized industrial manufacturing.
Material relationships
The current paradigm of design and production is incompatible with the ecosystems we live in, and it results in the rapid human-caused acceleration of climate change. It’s not enough to just say that there needs to be a systemic change: designers must act in a decisive way to create new material systems. By interacting with a material system that requires reciprocity and care, the project hopes to instill a deeper relationship with material beyond consumption.
So, the garden supports the local biodiversity near Ossinlampi and the Aalto Test Site, in addition to developing sustainable craft at Aalto University. The project aims to develop a “material independence” to resist harmful systems. It reaches beyond planned obsolescence and accelerating consumption to find new relations with materials. We ask: if creatives could see their materials growing, would their choices be different? Could we have a new system based on this valuable reciprocity?
Who we are
The Regenerative Textile Garden project is generously supported by the Sustainability Action Booster and exists within the Aalto Test Site garden space near Ossinlampi (Otakaari 5). Our work intends to develop the textile and dye garden in addition to phytoremediating the space, supporting the long term health of the garden and sustainable craft at Aalto University. The project founders are Johanna Hehemann (Fashion and Textiles), Sushmita Charlu (Collaborative and Industrial Design), and Brynna Justice (Creative Sustainability, Design Track).
