The Gifts of Time, Space, and Attention: Advocating for Biodiversity through Participatory Design, Speculative Scenarios, Performative Drawing, and Foraging View Digital Media

Workshop Presentation
Inna Alesina  

According to the US Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center, the climate change will exacerbate invasive plants spread northward. Coincidentally, the projected future hotspot of invasive plants abundance is predicted to center in Mid-Atlantic Region of the US, specifically Maryland/Pennsylvania border — author’s current home. This workshop consists of provocations, speculative objects, and if time/ space allows bodystorming (somatic exercises), nature walk/scavenger hunt and a tree witnessing meditation. In the world with novel ecosystem (plants, insects, and animals, that created a patchwork of food webs after human-made disturbance), a new daily rituals and practices can engage people in ways to heal themselves, the land, and its non-human inhabitants. Activities and instructions will address multiple ways people can adopt to the hypothetical world where daily life will include everyone’s participation in the monitoring, preventing the spread, and managing impacts of ever-growing number of invading plants. After the bodystorming provocation, participants will be asked to use the methods of biomimicry to linger in the questions about introduced invasive plants, their adaptation to new environments, and people’s anxiety around nature. The goal of the workshop is to create a collection of the hypothetical objects/ concepts in the form of small sketches that will be added to the display and will engage visitors in the participatory activity for the remainder of the conference.