The ongoing design project The Platform was launched during the course ”Design and the Posthumanist Perspective” at HDK-Valand, Gothenburg. It is rooted in the overarching issue of a broken relationship between humans, more-than-humans and the natural world – and how it could be re-established to create a lasting coexistence for all living.
The project is investigating relations and coexistence at the rural site Åsen, on the island of Orust, Sweden, by exploring the entanglements between all living things at the site. What relationships are there? How are they built, how can they be deepened and empowered? What can we (humans in particular) learn from this?
The questions are big and complex. Somehow a higher ground or arena was needed, where thoughts could grow into actions and knowledge. The platform or ”sanctuary” was therefore designed and built in a forest glade at Åsen, with the aim for it to be a partner for deeper relationships. The circular body of wood invite human–more-than-human to connectedness on the site by creating dialogues between biota. The design of the platform, basically the openness of the circle and its location, aim to transcend the constructed borders of human–more-than-human relations.
The platform is an urgent howl for climate action expressed from the quiet inner landscape of bodies and the relationships entangled further. Could the local experience of coexistence with more than humans be an embodied insight and change behaviour outside of the site?
With the support from Kulturbryggan/Swedish Arts Grants Committee, the work at Åsen will be expanded and shared as a method where artists and researchers from all disciplines are invited to work with a posthumanist approach on coexistence and relationships in the residence studio that are being built at the site. The ”Artist in Coexistence”-program (AiC) at Åsen will be open for application spring 2023. More info will soon be up at www.aic.earth.