Plump: Embracing Multi-Species Time to Alleviate Eco-Anxiety
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Accessible bathroom All gender bathroom Assistance animals welcomeThe growing climate crisis is impacting more than just our ecosystems. The continual decline of environmental health is also contributing to an existential eco-anxiety in the community. In some cases, eco-anxiety can even manifest in physical ways, such as an increased heart rate. Is there a way to alleviate these physical symptoms by reconnecting with other species’ experiences?
Plump is an embodied sensemaking object that emulates the slow beating of a seal’s heart. Participants are encouraged to embrace the object in any form to feel its heartbeat, relaxing the participant through a more-than-human experience and encouraging reflection on their eco-anxieties.
The experience prompts visitors to reconsider the narrative of human-centered living by introducing multi-species experiences, in order to shift our current relationship with the climate crisis.
Designed and conceptualised by recent RMIT Master of Design Innovation and Technology graduate Stephanie Ochona, this exhibition builds on their milestone project led by Dr Pirjo Haikola and Dr Lawrence Harvey.
To complement the installation a panel of industry fellows and experts will discuss how design can encourage reflection on the climate crisis and possibilities beyond the human.
Plump is supported by RMIT Culture
Participants
Stephanie Ochona (she/they) is a Filipino transdisciplinary designer and researcher, creating and learning on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung land. Their research explores themes around more-than-human solidarity and critical ecologies through participatory embodied sense-making practices.
With a focus on creating conditions for collaborative survival and care for the planetary commons, Luna Mrozik Gawler is a transdisciplinary artist interested in fugitive and feral multispecies narratives that (re)make worlds. Proposing participatory and relational futures, their research-led work draws from diverse disciplines with the intention to amplify queer articulations, agencies and futures beyond the human. Luna’s work has most recently been programmed or published by Next Wave, the Australian Network of Art and Technology, The Sydney Institute for the Environment, Incinerator Gallery, the Centre for Projection Art and the Powerhouse Museum of Applied Art and Science.
Cristina Margherita Napoleone is an emerging transdisciplinary artist-curator and researcher presently living and working in Melbourne (Naarm) on Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung land. She has a background in geography from The University of Melbourne and The University of California, Berkeley with emphases in ecological ethics, more-than-humanism and climate communication, which inform her explorations across formats that include installation and spatial design, digital media, mixed reality, live audiovisuals, photography and writing.
She’s collaborated with San Francisco based Emergence Magazine and Go Project Films on a variety of projects, including immersive VR spatial design at Austin’s SXSW in 2018 for the award-winning film ‘Sanctuaries of Silence’. In January 2020 she founded TERRAIN, an initiative that creates playful physical and digital spaces to remind humans that they are embedded in a more-than-human world.
Cristina’s broader vision for TERRAIN and its projects have been shared as a panellist and speaker with Transitions Film Festival, Real World VR, NGV Art Book Fair, Melbourne Design Week, Melbourne Music Week, MPavilion, FIBER (NL), Holland Festival (NL), RMIT University, the Geography Teachers Association of Victoria, Victorian Biodiversity Conference, and Newkind Social Justice Conference. She is currently an Ambassador of the Leaders in Global Sustainability Wattle Fellowship at The University of Melbourne.
Georgie Nolan is an Australian designer, researcher and educator. She holds an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and BA in Media and Communications from Swinburne University, Melbourne. She is currently a PhD student at RMIT University in the School of Design. Her research is focused around exploring the confluence of the fields of design and future studies, bringing together strategic foresight and visual design for ethical, educational, and professional practice. Alongside her research, Nolan continues to work in graphic design and is a visiting lecturer at the Glasgow School of Art in their Innovation School.
Dates
Tickets
Venue
Access
Accessible bathroom All gender bathroom Assistance animals welcomeThe growing climate crisis is impacting more than just our ecosystems. The continual decline of environmental health is also contributing to an existential eco-anxiety in the community. In some cases, eco-anxiety can even manifest in physical ways, such as an increased heart rate. Is there a way to alleviate these physical symptoms by reconnecting with other species’ experiences?
Plump is an embodied sensemaking object that emulates the slow beating of a seal’s heart. Participants are encouraged to embrace the object in any form to feel its heartbeat, relaxing the participant through a more-than-human experience and encouraging reflection on their eco-anxieties.
The experience prompts visitors to reconsider the narrative of human-centered living by introducing multi-species experiences, in order to shift our current relationship with the climate crisis.
Designed and conceptualised by recent RMIT Master of Design Innovation and Technology graduate Stephanie Ochona, this exhibition builds on their milestone project led by Dr Pirjo Haikola and Dr Lawrence Harvey.
To complement the installation a panel of industry fellows and experts will discuss how design can encourage reflection on the climate crisis and possibilities beyond the human.
Plump is supported by RMIT Culture
Participants
Stephanie Ochona (she/they) is a Filipino transdisciplinary designer and researcher, creating and learning on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung land. Their research explores themes around more-than-human solidarity and critical ecologies through participatory embodied sense-making practices.
With a focus on creating conditions for collaborative survival and care for the planetary commons, Luna Mrozik Gawler is a transdisciplinary artist interested in fugitive and feral multispecies narratives that (re)make worlds. Proposing participatory and relational futures, their research-led work draws from diverse disciplines with the intention to amplify queer articulations, agencies and futures beyond the human. Luna’s work has most recently been programmed or published by Next Wave, the Australian Network of Art and Technology, The Sydney Institute for the Environment, Incinerator Gallery, the Centre for Projection Art and the Powerhouse Museum of Applied Art and Science.
Cristina Margherita Napoleone is an emerging transdisciplinary artist-curator and researcher presently living and working in Melbourne (Naarm) on Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung land. She has a background in geography from The University of Melbourne and The University of California, Berkeley with emphases in ecological ethics, more-than-humanism and climate communication, which inform her explorations across formats that include installation and spatial design, digital media, mixed reality, live audiovisuals, photography and writing.
She’s collaborated with San Francisco based Emergence Magazine and Go Project Films on a variety of projects, including immersive VR spatial design at Austin’s SXSW in 2018 for the award-winning film ‘Sanctuaries of Silence’. In January 2020 she founded TERRAIN, an initiative that creates playful physical and digital spaces to remind humans that they are embedded in a more-than-human world.
Cristina’s broader vision for TERRAIN and its projects have been shared as a panellist and speaker with Transitions Film Festival, Real World VR, NGV Art Book Fair, Melbourne Design Week, Melbourne Music Week, MPavilion, FIBER (NL), Holland Festival (NL), RMIT University, the Geography Teachers Association of Victoria, Victorian Biodiversity Conference, and Newkind Social Justice Conference. She is currently an Ambassador of the Leaders in Global Sustainability Wattle Fellowship at The University of Melbourne.
Georgie Nolan is an Australian designer, researcher and educator. She holds an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and BA in Media and Communications from Swinburne University, Melbourne. She is currently a PhD student at RMIT University in the School of Design. Her research is focused around exploring the confluence of the fields of design and future studies, bringing together strategic foresight and visual design for ethical, educational, and professional practice. Alongside her research, Nolan continues to work in graphic design and is a visiting lecturer at the Glasgow School of Art in their Innovation School.
