Designing with Feral Plants w/ Trajna
Trajna collective addresses invasive plants as a symptom of human agency within our globalised capitalist-driven societies. An interdisciplinary team of designers, makers and ecologists understands these feral species as teachers through which they study the relations between culture and nature in the Anthropocene. Their existence invited them to become attentive to the pollinators in the city, learn about processes of sucession and question mental models which define the way we treat these non-human companions. They feel inspired by invasive plants vital presence, fascinating histories, healing properties, regenerative capacities and material potentiates through which they inform and support their livelihoods. In other words, the collective uses these unwanted green beings as tools for questioning how and with whom to collaborate to build a diverse web of life and exchange in our future ecosystems.
In this talk Trajna's leading members Gaja Mežnarić Osole and Andrej Koruza, will present some of their creative strategies for designing with feral plants. They will speak about running Notweed paper brand, Trajna’s Japanese knotweed paper business, designing micro-ecosystems for invasive goldfish & urban bees and initiating creative laboratory Krater, a mobile production space in a construction site rewilded with invasive plants.
Time: 19:00 BST
