Crafting the Anthropocene
A speculative workshop that investigates the impact of crafts and indigenous knowledge within the design process, and how it can help design with and not against nature.
The Anthropocene Conflict
Within the past few centuries, our world has become hyper-industrialized and digitized. We have lost the necessity to understand and work with our natural resources, seasons, and materials, as our ancestors once had. This disconnect, I believe, is at the core of our current global crises and as designers, we need to reestablish our connection and understanding of natural materials and processes in order to not exacerbate the environmental crises.
Craft Thinking Process
Craft Thinking is a method of integrating traditions of craft, embodied knowledge, and natural and material understanding back into the design process. It is an attempt to create design solutions which are more in tune with natural systems, with the understanding that we exist only in codependency with our surroundings and other non-human species.
Born in response to the ‘human centered design’ model, which singles out the human as the most important agent without considering the larger context of our ecosystems and processes, which we are dependent on. Craft Thinking is a framework that can help us design consciously with the knowledge of natural systems and lessen our footprint on the planet.
The key tools are thinking with the hands and learning directly from materials, drawing from indigenous and holistic knowledge systems, and using embodying and imagining as ways of understanding.
Workshop Structure
I designed and facilitated a workshop to test this … The participants were given activity cards, clay, and sculpting tools. The activity cards guided the group through a process of reflection, imagination and crafting, based on the ‘Craft Thinking’ framework.
Phase 1: Reflect on a traditional tool your grandparents (or ancestors) would use around a food ritual: preparing, preserving, cooking, eating.
I kept the prompt personal and open with the goal of generating discussion. Each participant talked about our memories from our childhood, our home countries, the tools themselves, but also the rituals and emotions around using it.
Phase 2: Reimagine the ways this ritual will change in the next hundred years, based on your Anthropocene card.
After reflecting on personal craft traditions, each participant choose an ‘Anthropocene Card’ at random. We used this card to reflect on the subject within the context of our tool and ritual. Participants were encouraged to think outside the box and come up with extreme scenarios.
Anthropocene Cards
Each of the ten Anthropocene Cards describe a unique crisis caused by human interventions; ie. over-farming, species extinction, nuclear wastes, and sea level rise.
Phase 3: Re-craft your tool based on the reimagined future ritual. What will change? What remains the same? What informs these changes?
In the final phase of the workshop, we took a moment to imagine future scenarios and discuss our visions of the future. I encouraged exaggeration as a tool to spark our imaginations. The final phase was to craft a new version of the traditional tool based on the future scenario each participant came up with. As we worked with our hands, we discussed our design decisions and their impacts.
Workshop Outcome & Insights
The workshop resulted in a series of speculative tools inspired by a global future scenario and indigenous traditions. Each participant drew from their cultural heritage and personal memories, reimagining traditional tools to respond to speculative future needs. Some creations were intricate, while others were simple, yet all carried deep cultural significance.
A key insight from the workshop was how storytelling played a crucial role in the design process. Coming from diverse cultural backgrounds, participants spent significant time describing their tools and sharing memories associated with them. This exchange not only deepened our understanding of each other's traditions but also reinforced the power of nostalgic rituals in shaping new ideas.
The act of physicalizing a vision through hands-on making sparked unexpected creativity, leading to an explosion of new ideas within the group. However, many participants initially struggled to connect their traditional tool or ritual with the specific crisis scenario assigned by their Anthropocene card. Interestingly, despite their speculative nature, most tools retained a strong resemblance to traditional forms—though often in exaggerated or abstracted ways.
The workshop highlighted how tactile engagement and shared cultural narratives can enhance future envisioning, demonstrating that the process of making is just as valuable as the final outcome.
