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Nature Fictions: Designing for a Sustainable Future through Nature Relations

Published: 10 July 2023 Publication History

Abstract

This paper presents nature fictions, a co-design approach that seeks to highlight relations between people and nonhuman stakeholders in the process of imagining sustainable futures. The work was situated in gardens, to explore nature relations in gardener's immediate surroundings and to imagine ways of combating the adverse effects human activities have on the Earth's natural systems. Our study involved design workshops with 15 gardeners, who engaged with different prompts (phenology wheel, nature cards, and paper prototypes) to provoke relational thought for creating nature fictions. Through this process, we identified three design spaces that illustrate the relevance of the nature fictions approach: 1) Community building through awareness and collaboration around nature, 2) Multispecies care in the garden, and 3) Creating balance in public spaces – From the garden to society. We discuss key tensions and anxieties, and opportunities for each design space, and we reflect on working with nature fictions and more-than-human thought.

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    DIS '23: Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference
    July 2023
    2717 pages
    ISBN:9781450398930
    DOI:10.1145/3563657
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    Published: 10 July 2023

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    Author Tags

    1. Gardening
    2. design fiction
    3. more-than-human
    4. multispecies worldview
    5. relations
    6. sustainable HCI

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    July 10 - 14, 2023
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    • (2024)AI and Future-Making: Design, Biases, and Human-Plant InteractionsProceedings of the 27th International Academic Mindtrek Conference10.1145/3681716.3681738(24-35)Online publication date: 8-Oct-2024
    • (2024)Posthumanist Care and Ecologies of Empathy: Investigating Design Potentials for Nature:Culture HCIProceedings of the 27th International Academic Mindtrek Conference10.1145/3681716.3681731(81-94)Online publication date: 8-Oct-2024
    • (2024)More-than-Human Perspectives in Human-Computer Interaction Research: A Scoping ReviewProceedings of the 13th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/3679318.3685408(1-18)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
    • (2024)Phenology Circles: A Method to Deepen Relations in More-Than-Human Design ProcessesProceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3643834.3660694(1059-1073)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
    • (2024)Speculative Morphing Matter: Designing a Sustainable Future Via Morphing Materials and StructuresProceedings of the 16th Conference on Creativity & Cognition10.1145/3635636.3664269(56-66)Online publication date: 23-Jun-2024
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    • (2024)Exploring post-human futures with design fiction among undergraduate students: implications for future-oriented design educationThe Design Journal10.1080/14606925.2024.2433357(1-24)Online publication date: 28-Nov-2024

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