"As we near March 8th 2081, we welcome you to the exhibit of the 8th Edition of the Haul Earth Ledger! This edition will showcase contributions from creatives all around the world! You will be able to enter one of the Black Friday Foundries (BFF) where every year, leading up to Black Friday celebrations , people get together to sift through raw materials left behind by now-obsolete consumer brands and create their own inventions!"
For this exhibition we want to transport visitors to 2081 and showcase what came out of a co-creative session run this past November on imagining alternative narratives for consumer holidays like Black Friday. The artefacts on exhibit will be the result of past participants' inventions. The visitors of the exhibition will be immersed into this scenario, experience the Black Friday Foundry creations, the process that led to them and contribute with their own inventions!
As a virtual exhibition where participants can come and visit at their own pace, the number of participants shouldn't be a problem.
We're hoping that many efforts and discussions will continue after Mozfest. Share any ideas you already have for how to continue the work from your session.:During one of the sessions that led to the results, one of the participants asked if we were doing this every year as it was the '8th edition' already, to which we answered: "Why not?". Hopefully, we can run more Haul Earth Ledger sessions with different participants and in different settings, and maybe even turn the fiction into reality and shift the narrative of consumer culture to maker culture, and have a particular day where people build their own inventions.
What is the goal and/or outcome of your session?:The session wants to offer an alternative outlook on consumer holidays and consumer habits by presenting the result of a participatory effort during which designers, biomedical engineers, environmental activists, and storytellers of all stripes, came together to create and make new inventions by using consumer products as raw materials. While the premise is fictional and happening in a far future (2081) we want to incentivize people to think beyond consumption and throw-away culture and engage with models of repair, DIY, hack, etc. Aiming to facilitate the transition from a consumer society to a creative, inventive, expressive society.
Furthermore, during the exhibition we would like to use the fictional artefacts to catalyse attention to present-day initiatives and counterparts that are acting in the world today and making it more sustainable (Right to repair, Exctiction Rebellion, The Slow Factory, Precious Plastics, Repair Cafe, etc.)
I am a designer trying to make sense of the world we've built for ourselves while exploring alternative modes of living, earning, and thinking, one project at a time.
Design researcher aiming to bring communities, users and other groups together to share their present experiences and activate their imagination toward preferable futures.