Living diorama / Designs for the pluriverse
UNIRSM Design, Università degli studi di San Marino
The diorama - an optical and pictorial tool, carrier of colonial and extractive narratives, long used to crystallise ecosystems inside natural history museums - taken out of its glass cases and returned to the territory as a living instrument. That is the idea at the heart of the Contemporary Critique course 2021–22, in which I took part alongside lecturer Angela Rui at the BA Design programme of the University of San Marino.
The course explored, in collaboration with the Centro Naturalistico Sammarinese, the possibilities of sensing, knowing and communicating to evoke new forms of solidarity between species on Monte Titano. Nocturnal playgrounds for insects, dens, nests, food reserves for butterflies, compost sheets to establish non-human alliances: ecosystemic devices to promote convivial and communal tools, involving human and non-human collectives. I contributed through research, developing some of the lessons and preparing theoretical and practical materials. The interpretations produced by students throughout the semester were collected in the fanzine whose layout I designed: a sixteenth as a visual atlas, a small insert dedicated to theoretical research, and a manifesto of the reflections and choices made throughout the course.