Reflections on "Design and Nature: A Partnership"

Some time ago, while conducting research for a paper on textile sustainability, I picked up a library book by Kate Fletcher called Sustainable Fashion and Textiles. I immediately fell in love with this profoundly informative guide to navigating textile sustainability. After I’d finished the paper and returned the book, I looked up the author and was immediately draw to an anthology titled Design and Nature: A Partnership. Edited (and contributed to) by Kate Fletcher, Louise St. Pierre, and Mathilda Tham, and described on its cover as a “rich resource for designers who wish to learn to engage with sustainability from the ground up”, I was sure this would be a valuable text for my capstone research. Plus, since this was early in 2020, I was eager to stock up on reading material before the (first) lockdown.

From the organizational structure (four themed sections progressing from lying down to receive, to walking to move) to the ideas presented and discussed, this resource resonates so strongly with me and my thesis work. Despite reading several intriguing pieces, it’s the first essay in the anthology that has stuck with me for many months. A Shift of Attention, written by Louise St. Pierre focusses mainly on animist beliefs, defined by St. Pierre as “the certainty that all life forms have knowledge and agency and that humans are interdependent with all these others” (20-21).

Fig. 1 Tarot cards from Jerico Mandybur’s Neo Tarot deck. Carefully selected and photographed by the writer (Rheanna) to symbolize the significance of Design and Nature’s four parts; lying down, sitting, standing, and walking.

St. Pierre begins by detailing her first experience speaking with a tree “at the urging of a First Nations Elder” (20), where she used meditation to turn her attention toward the tree and attune herself to the Cedar’s frequency. She describes feeling “a soft sensation of knowledge that came from both outside and inside of [her]”, and hearing “I am here” from “no definable origin” (20). Profoundly moved by this experience, St. Pierre now draws on Buddhist meditation and philosophies, drawing, and journaling to “listen, to shift [her] attention, [and] to be a student of nature” (20). This experince and continued practice is rather simillar to the goals of my capstine project. Although I have never spoken with a tree (I would love to try), I can relate to St. Pierre’s animist sentiments. I hope to encourage simmilar practices of attention shifting, embodied listening, and appreciation in users of my work through yoga and meditation along with the physical representations of nature in my work (plant-derived dyes and botanical imagery).

Serendipitously, St. Pierre writes about her coniferous conversation partner using feminine pronouns and later references Robin Wall Kimmerer’s teachings about nature’s pronouns, which I discussed in my previous post.

Fig. 2 Mighty Redwood Cedars on Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) land in British Columbia

St. Pierre also delves into the colonial history of animist beliefs. She explains that “in many Indigenous cultures, all entities have been assumed to have their own voice” (21), but early colonizers misinterpreted these beliefs to mean that “humanoid spirits and demons” (21) could occupy inanimate objects. This subject brings to mind another great book called Legends of Vancouver by E. Pauline Johnson; a collection of Chinook and Squamish Legends.

Fig. 3 Ugh, the colonialist, white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy strikes again!

After re-reading Louise St. Pierre’s essay, A Shift of Attention, and indeed the entire anthology of Design and Nature: A Partnership, I’m feeling genuinely inspired. I think that my project is well aligned with the topics that St. Pierre addresses and I’m looking forward to my future conversations with trees and maybe even some dye plants!

Works Cited

Cover copy. Design and Nature: A Partnership, edited by Kate Fletcher et al., Routledge, 2019.

St. Pierre, Louise. "A Shift of Attention." Design and Nature: A Partnership, edited by Kate Fletcher et al., Routledge, 2019, 20-25.

Figures

Fig. 1 Gilbert, Rheanna. “Tarot Cards from Jerico Mandybur’s Neo Tarot deck, Illustrated by Daiana Ruiz” 2020. Photograph.

Fig. 2 Gilbert, Rheanna. “Redwood Cedar” 2019. Photograph.

Fig. 3 You think that only because you don’t know any better. Gifer, n.p., n.d. gifer.com/en/6KUG.