Field Day - exhibition at WAS
Exhibition for Field Day and Prairie Burn by K. Lair
The scope of the challenge we face if we are to attempt to bring about transformative change for our most pressing environmental concerns may seem daunting. The challenge begins with the difficulty of recognizing the paradigms we use which may be cocooned in our unconscious and relied upon without reflection. Design is critical to enabling change: it helps us to reflect upon the tools and methods we use to ascribe meaning and value to the world. Therefore, as designers we must be versed in multiple ways of knowing the world and be capable of synthesizing knowledge from art, science and culture into creative work and further acts of discovery. Creative inquiry and aesthetic interpretation can be used to expose entrenched paradigms and address concerns for rural culture and ecology. The work presented in “Field Day” is an exploration of the creative potential in the post-industrial rural environment. One of the creative explorations in development is a program of controlled or prescribed burns in which the fire is used to promote biodiversity.) Fire is essential to the ecosystem renewal in Midwest rural ecology and used in pre-settlement and early settlement farming practices but has been mostly eliminated by industrial agricultural methods during the early part of the past century. Through a deeper appreciation of the role of fire in natural systems a restorative, community-based prescribed burn program may foster cultural vibrancy, ecological awareness and environmental health.
In order to forward my contention that our entrenched paradigms need to be challenged through creative inquiry, I am making a mutually supportive argument: the need for changing paradigms is the basis for creative potential. Another term for the prescribed burns program is a “demonstration project”; however, again I choose to mainly define this work as a “creative inquiry,” and I seek to establish why this is appropriate in the context of aesthetic interpretation and design’s role in shaping new paradigms. My aesthetics and design regarding environmental concerns refers to several writers and theorists such as Gianfranco Baruchello, Michael Polanyi, and Jane Bennett whose ideas support seeking connections outside of conventional disciplinary thinking. My position is intended to support design and environmental interests as either common or integrative among disciplines. The prairie burn has been developed through an exploration in the history, ecology and culture of the land. In particular, the shift has been to dissolve the habits and perspective that in which I feel empowered to use the land as a ready resources to be transformed, shaped and given value by human will.
K. Lair '14
The scope of the challenge we face if we are to attempt to bring about transformative change for our most pressing environmental concerns may seem daunting. The challenge begins with the difficulty of recognizing the paradigms we use which may be cocooned in our unconscious and relied upon without reflection. Design is critical to enabling change: it helps us to reflect upon the tools and methods we use to ascribe meaning and value to the world. Therefore, as designers we must be versed in multiple ways of knowing the world and be capable of synthesizing knowledge from art, science and culture into creative work and further acts of discovery. Creative inquiry and aesthetic interpretation can be used to expose entrenched paradigms and address concerns for rural culture and ecology. The work presented in “Field Day” is an exploration of the creative potential in the post-industrial rural environment. One of the creative explorations in development is a program of controlled or prescribed burns in which the fire is used to promote biodiversity.) Fire is essential to the ecosystem renewal in Midwest rural ecology and used in pre-settlement and early settlement farming practices but has been mostly eliminated by industrial agricultural methods during the early part of the past century. Through a deeper appreciation of the role of fire in natural systems a restorative, community-based prescribed burn program may foster cultural vibrancy, ecological awareness and environmental health.
In order to forward my contention that our entrenched paradigms need to be challenged through creative inquiry, I am making a mutually supportive argument: the need for changing paradigms is the basis for creative potential. Another term for the prescribed burns program is a “demonstration project”; however, again I choose to mainly define this work as a “creative inquiry,” and I seek to establish why this is appropriate in the context of aesthetic interpretation and design’s role in shaping new paradigms. My aesthetics and design regarding environmental concerns refers to several writers and theorists such as Gianfranco Baruchello, Michael Polanyi, and Jane Bennett whose ideas support seeking connections outside of conventional disciplinary thinking. My position is intended to support design and environmental interests as either common or integrative among disciplines. The prairie burn has been developed through an exploration in the history, ecology and culture of the land. In particular, the shift has been to dissolve the habits and perspective that in which I feel empowered to use the land as a ready resources to be transformed, shaped and given value by human will.
K. Lair '14
The exhibition for field day and demonstration burn provided the opportunity for new material to be developed from the burn itself. Images, text and ideas from the burn are included on the event page for the burn; however, some additional images have been selected as a kind of epilogue to the exhibition.
