Danielle Wilde | Growing Collaborative Futures—why research at the margins matters

This event will be held both on-campus and online.

Danielle Wilde is an Australian descendant of settlers, living as a settler in Ubmeje Sápmi and in Kolding, Denmark; Professor in Design for Sustainability at Umeå University, Sweden, and in Sustainability Transitions at The University of Southern Denmark. Their research is radically transdisciplinary; draws on feminist, intersectional, embodied epistemologies, ontologies, and geographies; is conducted in collaboration with Indigenous and non-Indigenous, human and other communities; at the intersections of systemic issues, localised practices, and governance. The work brings Design into fruitful collision with Food Studies, Environmental Humanities, Environmental Economics, Feminist STS, Molecular Biology, Agriculture, Forestry and Plant Sciences…scaling up to impact policies, laws and infrastructures; out to support adoption and adaptation of promising approaches to new locations; and deep to impact the narratives, values and mindsets that determine what is possible in the world.

Danielle will discuss the research efforts of The Sympoietic Collaboratory (SPC), at Umeå University, Ubmeje Sápmi, in the Swedish Arctic, and FoodLab in Kolding, Denmark, to reflect on why working at the margins—across scales, cultures and imaginaries—matters. SPC and FoodLab work in complement, gathering elders, researchers, public authorities, fishermen, farmers, community members and other knowledge holders to diversify thinking about multispecies flourishing, systemic transformation and governance. Together, we work with divergent theories, materials, methods and matters of concern, to co-create future flourishing, grounding our inquiries in embodied and participatory research through design (pRtD), using food as personally meaningful, globally impactful, socio-culturally-loaded, vibrant materiality. The aim of the work is to enliven Donna Haraway’s concept of staying with the trouble. Over diverse projects and discussions, we decentre the human, consider what might be at stake for human and non-humankind, and the futures that can be fermented through thoughtful 'making with', valuing situated expertise and divergent ways of knowing. Through these means, we strive gently “to become capable of response” to the impacts of historical, contemporary, and imagined food practices on world-making, considering what might be at stake, for whom, and how imaginaries matter.

This event will be held both on-campus and online via Zoom (a link to the online stream will be sent to registered attendees).

The School of Art & Design Seminar series will continue weekly on Tuesdays from 1-2pm, between 16 July and 29 October 2024. 
To see information about upcoming speakers and to register to attend please follow this link https://rb.gy/v923bn
The School of Art & Design Seminar Series is co-convened by Dr Alex Burchmore, Alia Parker, and Elisa Crossing.