A Decolonized Decarbonized Dinner Party: Volume 2

A Decolonized & Decarbonized Dinner Party Parsons The New School

Volume 2 Michele Gorman Yvette Chaparro Preeti Gopinath

© 2024 Michele Gorman, Yvette Chaparro, and Preeti Gopinath This book is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. The author and publisher do not offer it as professional services advice. The best efforts were made in preparing this book, but the author and publisher make no representations or warranties of any kind and assume no liabilities of any kind with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Neither the author nor the publisher shall be held liable or responsible to any person or entity with respect to any loss or incidental or consequential damages caused, or alleged to have been caused, directly or indirectly, by the information contained herein.

With contributions by Ben Barry, Hermie Delport, David J. Lewis, Maria Linares Trelles, and Yvonne Watson.

Design: Original Copy Typefaces: UltraSolar, ABC Diatype

Contents Foreword Maria Linares Trelles

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From the Directors Michele Gorman, Yvette Chaparro, Preeti Gopinath

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Affirmations of Interdisciplinary Work and Knowledge Sharing Ben Barry, David J. Lewis, Hermie Delport, Yvonne Watson

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Symposia + Workshops University of Cape Town, 3/15 Symposium, 4/4 Workshop, 4/13

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Contributions

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Dinner Party Exhibition

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Resources Workshops Resources Community Program Overviews Acknowledgments Image Credits

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“For most of history, nature has been invaded, subjugated, exploited, scarred and deeply altered.

Forests were devoured to create the ships that colonized the world. Wars were fought over water, soil and land. Rivers, mountains, and even trees were used as colonial barriers. The scars of Apartheid are also ‘green’—parks, rivers, mountains were used as divisions, and still divide and define our cities today. We have colonized the landscape, yet could not colonize without it. The path towards ‘Decolonization and Decarbonization’ is to refocus on the landscape, erode ecological colonial boundaries, and to regenerate and rewild colonial scars.”

—Heidi Boulanger

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Foreword In recent years, the global water crisis has intensified, as evidenced by extreme droughts, devastating floods, melting ice caps, sea-level rising, ocean acidification and pollution, unequal access to safe drinking water, and the militarization and privatization of water bodies. As designers, we are faced with the urgency to act quickly and respond to this crisis while taking accountability for design’s complicity in aggravating the problem. By increasing water consumption and pollution during fabrication processes, shaping use-and-discard patterns of consumption that increase waste, sustaining the nature-culture divide and alienating us from other bodies of water, and reproducing systems of power, design actively perpetuates environmental degradation and injustice.

In this context, this year’s Decolonized & Decarbonized Dinner Party invites designers to reconsider our relationship with water. Through three coordinated events—a symposium, a workshop, and a dinner party— the Decolonized & Decarbonized Dinner Party gathered students, faculty, practitioners, activists, and scholars across design disciplines around a collective table to share and explore together the complexities and entanglements of the environmental crisis, addressing food insecurity and decolonization, while embracing the imperative role of designers in shaping alternative futures that sustain life.

What if recipes could open the space to reimagine our relationship as water bodies?

Students presented their “recipes” for artifacts, materials, interiors, and rituals as part of a Dinner Party for Earth Day at Circular Economy Manufacturing in Governor’s Island. With every student contribution, the dinner table drew a guide for the future of design inquiries and practices. Recipes focused on waste reduction by repurposing food scraps and developing new biomaterials. They also explored

Maria Linares Trelles new temporalities, favoring slow making and natural cycles—some recipes included fermentation, while others carefully reproduced water ecosystems.

These processes transformed water relationships by promoting interspecies collaboration, care, generosity, and reciprocity. Some recipes heightened awareness of obscured histories, contesting colonial narratives, while others articulated rituals that engaged body and memory in new ways through sensory experiences.

We should remember that—as a table at the end of a meal—this creative process is messy. Rather than a neat single resolution, the Decolonized & Decarbonized Dinner Party creates a space for testing and imagining, as well as for contesting existing structures and revising positions and biases. We hope the contributions presented in this book serve as an invitation to cultivate better ways of living together in and through our design practices.

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From the As colleagues who lead three different graduate programs (Interiors, Textiles, and Industrial Design), in two different schools (Constructed Environments and Fashion) at Parsons School of Design, we were delighted to once again collaborate across disciplines on this second edition of a Decolonized & Decarbonized Dinner Party. The Decolonized & Decarbonized Dinner Party project’s first edition in 2022 was a significant milestone at Parsons, fostering a truly cross-disciplinary collaboration among faculty, students, and alumni from diverse backgrounds.

Encouraged by its success, we expanded our efforts in 2023, taking the project internationally to engage with the University of Cape Town and culminating in a dinner party performance on Governor’s Island in New York.

This initiative was launched in celebration of Earth Day and revolved around critical themes of sustainability, decolonization, and social justice, with a focus on the role of design in addressing these pressing issues. Water, as a vital resource and a symbol of interconnectedness, became the central theme for the 2023 edition. The project shifted its focus from product outcomes to processes, rituals, and networks that promote repair, restoration, healing, and decolonization.

Through workshops, symposia, and discussions, participants explored the dynamics of water access, power, inequality, and environmental degradation.

We began in South Africa, where Interior Design Program Director Michele Gorman visited the University of Cape Town (UCT) and started the conversation with faculty and students through a lecture and workshop. An interesting conversation about the value of a performative “land acknowledgment” was initiated amongst us, as it was perceived negatively and questioned in the South African context. We are mindful of our own differences in perception based on experience and continue to have animated conversations amongst ourselves on the subject

Directors of land acknowledgment. This was followed by an international online symposium centered on how water connects us all, across multiple scales, territories, and landscapes. In most cases, access and interaction with water is regulated by power dynamics that reproduce segregation, inequality, and environmental degradation.

Our presenters described the presence of water in their current work through the format of a “recipe.”

As presented by Cocinas Alterinas, “recipes act as cartographies, narratives and repositories of memory.”

The symposium served to reiterate our premise that as essential as water is to our human existence, our access and interaction with water is regulated by power dynamics that reproduce segregation, perpetuate inequality, and exacerbate environmental degradation.

Our students from Parsons selected from the three design programs that each of us leads, then participated in a workshop with Maria Linares Trelles and reframed an existing project or current interest through a further reading of the topic, and reconstructed it through the format of a recipe.

(From left to right) MFA Directors Michele Gorman, Preeti Gopinath, and Yvette Chaparro

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The final celebratory dinner party was held on Earth Day, April 22nd, 2023, on Governors Island in New York, suitably located next door to the Circular Economy Manufacturing factory. An extraordinary and beautiful thematic table was set, and recipes and manifestos related to water consumption, conservation and its relationship with our respective design practices were read—as performance—at the venue.

Looking ahead, we plan to expand the workshops and symposia into an elective course, ensuring the continued growth of this cross-disciplinary collaboration. The Decolonized & Decarbonized Dinner Party project stands as a remarkable example of how design and creativity can be harnessed to address complex global challenges, promote sustainability, and spark vital conversations on issues of vital importance.

Earth Day 2023 Decolonized & Decarbonized Dinner Party celebration in Governors Island

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Affirmations of Work and “Water is the lifeblood of fashion and textiles. It nourishes all creators—the land, animals, and people.

Yet colonization has turned water into a weapon to harm the creators and the relationships between them, privileging hierarchy and profit at the cost of a collective future. Decarbonized & Decolonized is an intervention into this system of oppression. It brings together faculty and students in MFA Textiles, MFA Interior Design and MFA Industrial Design to re-claim, re-frame, and re-work how we understand and collaborate with water in the design process. This book honors water as the lifeblood of design and maps out what a just relationship with water must be.”

Ben Barry, PhD (he/him) Dean, School of Fashion Associate Professor of Equity and Inclusion

“This summer, the combination of river drought and rising sea levels dramatically altered the lifeblood of communities along the lower Mississippi. Saltwater has overwhelmed freshwater supplies, impacting everything from drinking sources to food systems.

Living bodies can survive without food for weeks, but only days without water. Decolonized and Decarbonized focus on the relationship between design practices and water is essential, timing, and urgent.

This work is part of a broader move from framing the constructed environment in opposition to water, to embracing this essential element of life through regenerative, circular understandings and models.”

David J. Lewis (he/him) Dean, School of Constructed Environments

Interdisciplinary Knowledge Sharing “On the African continent many people still live without easy access to fresh water. Often women and children need to walk far to water sources to collect water for drinking. These sources are sometimes contaminated, shared with animals, or seasonal.

If you live in an informal settlement in South Africa, you may only have access to a communal tap that you share with many other households. You can imagine the difficulty in transporting water.

How does this affect food preparation, cooking, and sanitation?

Designers attempt to solve these water problems in different ways. You may know about innovative and acclaimed projects such as the Warka Water Tower and the Hippo Roller. These ideas contribute immensely, but are not enough. We need to design for water as part of everything we do. Every product, structure, and habitat. We are water. The Decolonized Decarbonized Dinner Party raises awareness of role and relationship with water.”

Hermie Delport (she/her) School of Architecture, Planning & Geomatics University of Cape Town

“In Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks states that ‘To teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin.’

The Decolonized & Decarbonized Dinner Party is an intervention that provides nourishment for both the body and the soul. We are experiencing a global policrisis which requires us to question our positionalities regarding whose knowledge we give priority to.

I congratulate my colleagues for being the perfect ‘hosts’ in this thoughtful disruptive intervention.”

Yvonne Watson (she/her) Executive Dean, Parsons School of Design

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Image produced with Midjourney.

This year’s Decolonized + Decarbonized Dinner Party included a symposium with guest speakers discussing our complex relationships to water in the context of design, food security and decolonization. Speakers asked critical question from five contexts: Peru, Egypt, Switzerland, US and South Africa.

The symposium opened up dialogue and exchanges around provocations: How can extreme (landscape) conditions for growing food, result in diverse and inventive recipes?

What is the relationship between food, making, and waterbodies?

Which recipes still perpetuate colonial extractivist remnants in our (landscapes)?

What if recipes could open up the space to reimagine our relationship as (landscape) bodies?

How do we make the diverse bodies of water in our kitchens visible?

How do we redraw our water systems in the context of colonization?

How do we visualize Indigenous understandings and relationships to water?

How do we develop sustainable building practices within a decolonial framework?

What are the relationships between sustainability, water and food security in design?

What is the future of water and food systems in plural visions of design?

How can we continue indigenous and community based planting methods through design?

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Symposia + Workshops

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University of Cape Town

Michele Gorman presenting at the University of Cape Town

For the 2023 Decolonized & Decarbonized Dinner Party, we intentionally engaged the University of Cape Town (UCT), on the south western coast of South Africa. UCT, where the “Fees must Fall” protests began in 2015, led a global movement to challenge institutional racism, inherited from Apartheid and colonialism. The removal of the UCT Cecil John Rhodes statue overlooking the city of Cape Town inspired calls to decolonize the curriculum and pedagogy across South African universities.1 Eight years later, we were interested to learn from this community of researchers and its transformation of the architectural and design studio pedagogy in particular, as coloniality, design, landscapes and space are inextricably linked.2

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This year’s Decolonized & Decarbonized Symposium + Dinner Party asked each presenter and contributor about their complex relationships to water in the context of design, food security, and decolonization from their own context. Students and faculty at UCT are actively designing buildings, spaces and objects within the context of extreme drought, and water scarcity, disproportionately affecting informal settlements and low income communities who do not have access to water for drinking or hygiene. A looming Day-Zero forced design innovation on water conservation, management and collection systems.3 Design research labs such as Future Waters Institute at UCT offer public resources on water sensitive design practices in the field.

From March 15–17, 2023, on behalf of graduate Directors Chaparro, Gopinath, and Gorman, Parsons Director Michele Gorman and co-author of The Radically Inclusive Studio (RIS),4 was invited to the School of Planning and Geomatics at the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa by Senior Lecturer, Dr. Hermie Delport (RIS), Lecturer, Heidi Boulanger and Co-Course Convenor, Dr. Chisomo Phiri to share the Decolonized & Decarbonized Dinner Party project as a public talk, exchange knowledge and resources on Decolonized & Decarbonized practices through studio visits, and prompt the UCT community to contribute to the 2023 Decolonized Decarbonized Dinner Party.

The public talk was hosted as a hybrid event in the APG Pink Room auditorium and on Zoom, pending planned load shedding (power outages) in Cape Town. Gorman shared the project within the context of her own interdisciplinary practice and research on radically inclusive design pedagogy. Following a warm welcome from Decolonized & Decarbonized Symposium speaker, Heidi Boulanger, Gorman gave a land acknowledgment. She presented how the Decolonized & Decarbonized Dinner Party Talks and

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“Living and practicing in a water-scarce city (Cape Town) has made me a water-literate citizen and a designer. I consider mindful and effective water management an essential design strategy. The use of water in my design proposal includes hydrating, dehydrating (of kelp for consumption), planting (and expansion of kelp forests), the absorption of carbon by water/kelp forests and the absorption of severe climate events by kelp forests.”

— Nelia van der Wat (she/her) Student, University of Cape Town, Architecture

“I am exploring how water can connect people socially and can be incorporated in my building tectonics and design. I’m also interested in how it can be easily collected, reserved and accessed by people.”

— Deborah Chemonges (she/her) Student, University of Cape Town, Architectural Studies

Workshops explore novel collaborative methods of interrogating and understanding both Decolonization and Decarbonization. Resources were shared on working with bio based materials and Parsons student research and stories, bridging their own cultural rituals of food and making ways to address decarbonizing practices.

Students and faculty were invited to contribute to the Decolonized & Decarbonized Workshops and Dinner Party remotely through a Miro board and at the Decolonized & Decarbonized Symposium on April 13 on Zoom. For contributions to the Dinner Party table on April 22, Parsons students would print, make, and present their recipes with credit to honor them through proxy.

Following the talk, Gorman visited undergraduate architecture studios across to make space for smaller conversations with faculty and students, listening to concerns of students during desk feedback sessions, and learning from ongoing decolonial, sustainable, and water sensitive practices within the school. Bachelors of Architectural Design Studio 3 term 4 project: Landscapes of Memory: van Riebeeck, Rhodes and the First People a “Decolonial” Museum, coordinated by Dr. Hermie Delport and Heidi Boulanger, students work within a design program that reads like a manifesto of decolonial, regenerative, and decarbonizing design practices. One example: “Materiality should be hyperlocal (at least 40% found directly on the site, with the remainder sourced within 20km from the site). Focus on

natural materiality, local skills development/labor use in architecture.”

Speaking to students, they were eager to develop healthier building materials and practices shared from Parsons, finding a synergy with their own design ethics and brief.

On behalf of Parsons, Gorman donated a print of the 2022 Decolonized & Decarbonized Dinner Party publication,5 Material Health: Design Frontiers,6 and Manual of Biogenic House Sections7 to the University of Cape Town Built Environment Library.

As many of our own Parsons graduate students are from post colonial contexts (ex. India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Peru, Columbia, United States, Mexico), we see UCT and South African faculty and students expanding our Dinner Table discourse.

Thank you to the students and faculty of UCT for the ongoing conversation.

Huda Tayob, “Race, Space, Architecture,” The Routledge Companion to Architectural Pedagogies of the Global South, ed. Ashraf Salama, Harriet Harriss, and Ane Gonzalez Lara, (Routledge, 2022).

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Michele Gorman, Yvette Chaparro, Preeti Gopinath, “Decolonozed and Decarbonized Dinner Party Symposium”, Parsons School of Design.

April 4, 2023.

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Michele Gorman, Yvette Chaparro, Preeti Gopinath, “Decolonozed and Decarbonized Dinner Party Symposium.”

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Michele Gorman, Jolanda Morkel, Hermie Youlgarelis Delport, and Lindy Osborne Burton, Huda Tayob, “The Radically Inclusive Studio: An open access conversation on radically inclusive practices in the architectural design studio,” The Routledge Companion to Architectural Pedagogies of the Global South, ed. Ashraf Salama, Harriet Harriss, and Ane Gonzalez Lara, (Routledge, 2022).

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Michele Gorman, Yvette Chaparro, and Preeti Gopinath, A Decolonized & Decarbonized Dinner Party. (Parsons / The New School, 2022).

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Healthy Materials Lab, Material Health: Design Frontiers (Lund Humphries Publishers Limited, 2022).

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Paul Lewis, Marc Tsurumaki, and David J. Lewis, Manual of Biogenic House Sections: Materials and Carbon (Oro Editions, 2022).

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Symposium The Decolonized & Decarbonized symposium brought tgether four presenters—Heidi Boulanger, Chisomo Phiri, and Gabriela Aquije and Mayar El Bakry of Cocinas Alterinas—and was moderated by Maria Linares Trelles.

The first presenter, Heidi Boulanger, an architect, designer, and researcher from the University of Cape Town, delved into her ongoing project titled “Landscapes of Memory.” Heidi’s talk focused on exploring decolonial narratives through a spatial and architectural lens in Cape Town. She highlighted the importance of understanding the narratives woven into the city’s spaces before embarking on their decolonization.

Boulanger’s approach to decolonization was rooted in a landscape perspective. She emphasized that colonial history is closely tied to landscapes, including their geography, topography, and resources. Water was a significant factor in Cape Town’s colonial history, shaping its origin and development. She discussed how water played a role in colonial conflicts, exemplified by the Dutch establishing a refreshment station due to the abundance of freshwater sources.

The historical map depicted the Cape of Good Hope, underscoring the centrality of landscape in colonial narratives. Boulanger stressed that understanding these narratives was vital before attempting to decolonize them. She introduced the three figures that shaped Cape Town’s history: the First People; Kobe Fan Rebic Yonfan Rubik, representing the Dutch; and Cecil John Rhodes, representing the British. These narratives, while tacit in the city’s spaces, were crucial to the process of decolonization.

Heidi Boulanger symposium presentation

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The landscape of Cape Town, even after the end of Apartheid and the transition to democracy, remained visibly shaped by its colonial history. Apartheid’s spatial segregation still persisted, and monuments honoring imperialists like Rhodes continued to dominate the cityscape. Boulanger shared a map of racial distribution in Cape Town, which visually highlighted the enduring segregation based on colonial roots.

Boulanger’s studio project aimed to explore decolonial spatiality in Cape Town by investigating three key sites: the Two Rivers Urban Park, Rhodes Memorial, and the remaining part of the historical hedge. Students in the studio engaged with these sites to understand their layered histories and propose decolonial architectural interventions.

The first site, Rhodes Memorial, prompted projects that reimagined its function and interaction with the landscape. One project focused on storytelling and designed a museum to share indigenous narratives and histories through visual and physical storytelling elements. Another envisioned the memorial being reclaimed by nature over time, encouraging dialogue about the legacy of Rhodes.

The Two Rivers Urban Park site, a scene of historical conflict between the Dutch and the Koi, prompted student projects that emphasized sensitivity to indigenous worldviews. One project envisioned a light, sensitive building that connected to the Amazon headquarters, using reclaimed materials to honor the landscape’s ecological relationships. Another project proposed a birdhouse-like structure, made from thatch, to highlight indigenous narratives about the stars.

The last site, Kirstenbosch Gardens, a remnant of the historical hedge, inspired projects that focused on rewilding and indigenous vegetation. One project reimagined the site as a decolonial food-based museum, encouraging storytelling through indigenous plantings and outdoor events.

Boulanger’s presentation shed light on the significance of landscapes and architecture in understanding and decolonizing narratives in Cape Town. She emphasized

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Chisomo Phiri symposium presentation

the need to recognize the layers of history embedded in the city’s spaces before attempting to reshape them for a more equitable future. Her studio’s projects exemplified architectural approaches to engage with the city’s past and present, while envisioning a more decolonized spatiality. Boulanger’s work highlighted the ongoing journey toward dismantling the enduring impacts of colonialism on Cape Town’s urban fabric.

As the symposium’s second speaker, Chisomo Phiri discussed the importance of sustainability and inclusivity in relation to water, food, and architecture.

Phiri addressed the significance of water as a resource and its complex relationship with various aspects of society. Phiri’s research focused on water and inclusivity, particularly within the context of Bay Hagberg, considering issues of water scarcity and accessibility.

A full 1.8 million people worldwide face water scarcity, two million lack access to sanitation. According to Sue Roaf and David Crichton, our global concern for the future will be the issue of water security. Soon we will find ourselves in need of a freshwater resource to meet our growing demands (Novotny et al. 2010).

Water scarcity has already hit the city of Cape Town in an impactful way. Around this emergency Capetonians

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banded together to reduce reuse and recycle water.

Social concerns were revisited, and the urgency of the situation encouraged unity. Studies have since shown that during the period when water reserves were at an all-time low, Capetonian value and care towards water management increased.

Water is a critical resource that holds diverse meanings based on individual experiences. Phiri emphasized the need to recognize its value beyond simple availability—from the effort it takes to access water from distant sources to the wasteful practices in societies accustomed to abundance. Potable water scarcity is a significant concern, and it’s predicted that water and food security could be central to future global conflicts.

Design was highlighted as a means to create a more inclusive and sustainable world. Phiri defined design as the process of translating current challenges into cohesive solutions for a better future. To be effective, designers must consider diverse perspectives and information sources, fostering inclusive design.

Water is a key element in designing sustainable cities.

Phiri described a “sensitive city” as one that proactively incorporates natural waterways into its infrastructure, promoting water conservation and management.

Proper water management links to improved economic health and ecosystem well-being, with climate change manifesting most evidently through water-related issues like floods and droughts.

Phiri also addressed the social inequities perpetuated by historical factors such as Apartheid. Low-income communities often suffer from inadequate water quality and services, positioning them in marginalized and insecure areas. Shifting toward sustainable design involves empowering communities through inclusive processes, rather than imposing solutions from external sources.

Livable architecture is presented as a solution, incorporating context, environmental considerations, and modern technologies. Phiri’s research involved collaborating with various experts and stakeholders to develop water-sensitive designs that enhance economic, environmental, and equitable aspects of communities. He also explored the potential of using

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Chisomo Phiri symposium presentation

organic waste and rainwater to generate food and energy, presenting a vision for a future food system integrated into architecture.

Phiri underscored the crucial role of sustainable and inclusive design in addressing societal challenges, moving away from colonial systems and embracing collaborative efforts. He envisions architects as leaders in creating holistic solutions that decarbonize and decolonize the future, emphasizing the importance of weaving inclusive principles into designs for a more equitable world.

In the symposium’s third presentation, Cocinas Alterinas’s Gabriela Aquije and Mayar El Bakry reflected on the challenges of navigating academic spaces due to inaccessible language and emphasize the importance of collaboration, especially shortterm collaborations, in nurturing their projects. They acknowledged the influence of feminist scholars on

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their work and highlighted their commitment to staying open, curious, and critical in their creative processes.

Their practice aims to break down complex concepts and connect academic knowledge with embodied experiences, particularly in navigating spaces not designed for them as BIPOC individuals.

The speakers used food and cooking as a metaphor for discussing design, collaboration, and decolonization.

They referred to their collaborative project involving questions related to food, water bodies, and landscapes, examining concepts such as Commons versus commodity, techniques and technology, and activism versus actor. They delved into the stories behind recipes, ingredients, and measurements, tracing the migration of flavors and techniques and discussing the politics of sourcing ingredients. They highlighted how recipes can reveal hidden narratives of migration and violence.

Throughout their presentation, Aquije and El Bakry expressed a keen interest in exploring translation as a practice, emphasizing the need for nuanced understanding rather than a direct word-for-word translation. They mentioned their focus on indigenous knowledge, feminist practices, and critical reflection to challenge existing norms and standards within design.

They shared examples of their projects that involve reinterpreting cooking utensils, understanding the interconnectedness of people and land, and creating spaces of healing and joy.

The concept of design as a political act was a recurring theme in their discussion. They stressed the importance of naming and challenging white supremacy within design and actively engaging in processes of decolonization. They underscored the significance of their projects as forms of resistance and unlearning that bring different streams of knowledge and collaboration to the forefront.

Aquije and El Bakry concluded by acknowledging their ongoing journey of learning, unlearning, and politicizing their actions. They highlighted the ongoing process of making their collaborators and various streams of knowledge visible within their practices.

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Cocinas Alterinas symposium presentation

For more details on the Symposium presentation and their associated workshop sessions, please see pages 124–127.

For a Zoom video of the presentations, please visit via the QR code.

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Workshop Inspired by some of the propositions presented at the symposium—focused on restorative justice, domestic water cycles, community work, and embodied practices—the workshop led by Maria Linares Trelles became a space of exchange and innovation.

Following a “recipe” format,” students broke down their research and design explorations in ingredients, measurements, and processes. In this way, they were able to map the networks of bodies, conditions, and relationships that mediate our interactions with water and identify points of intervention to materially transform our watery landscapes.

Brainstorming by students accross disciplines

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Top: Workshop facilitated by Maria Linares Trelles.

Bottom: Students showing their materiality work as part of the workshop.

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Students showing their materiality work as part of the workshop.

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Contributions

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A recipe for maternal generosity Valeria Maldonado Morales (she/her) MFA Textiles

Within my practice, I talk about the matriarchal aspect of water. Water as a medium generates strength, is a creator of life, and can cleanse, not only on the surface but also from an energetic point of view. Water is a connecting medium that communicates humanity, a nurturing motherly force that allows for flexibility and change. My current project talks about feminine constructions and it creates a conversation about water as a maternal medium that creates the conditions for rigid materials to shift, allowing plasticity, flexibility, and change, all characteristics related to feminism. Further, my practice has involved natural dying with food scraps as an important aspect of creating value for things that are preconceived as “trash”; in this iteration, water has been an important bridge that allowed for blending and communicating the food scraps with the textiles.

37 A recipe for maternal generosity

Ingredients: 1. Cochineal – Sourced from Peru 2. Avocado – Save pits and skins from your loved one’s homes 3. Rattan – Make sure it’s always wet 4. Kappa Carrageenan – Scarce resources should be used in moderation 5. Water – Make sure you use every ounce Preparation: 1. Start by creating the Bioplastics. First, make a batch of natural dye by boiling your avocado skins and pits, then use this fluid to dye your wool and combine the leftovers of the dye with glycerin and Kappa Carrageenan.

2. Create basket. Dye rattan with water and avocado pigments, then moisture rattan and create structures.

3. Start attachment. Combine bioplastics with the basket by slow sewing and embroidery.

4. Give your new organ away to a loved one.

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Recipe to conserve and consume Neha Bhide (she/her) MFA Textiles

Cotton is the most unsustainable natural material today, while its demand is among the highest. The main reason for its unsustainability is the amount of water required to grow the crops. The water footprint of one pound of cotton is 1,320 gallons. It is mind boggling how greenwashing by huge fashion corporations has made us believe that anything natural is sustainable and how making this seemingly sustainable choice of purchasing cotton clothes can be an excuse to consume even more.

Today, we forget the materials of the past, that varieties of cotton exist that are rain fed and are truly sustainable, one of them being kala cotton, a local organic cotton variety that grows in Gujarat in India. My work focuses on the use and promotion of this material, while also aiming to use only waste, and other discarded materials in my practice.

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Recipe to reuse and adapt Mehak P. Surana (she/her) MFA Textiles

I use water for washing, mordanting and dyeing my textile. Another use of water is as a base substance that solidifies as plastics in combination with starch when making Bio-plastics or bio textiles.

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RECIPE TO REUSE AND ADAPT The piece that I am showcasing is a table mat. It is a patchwork made using Bioplastics and recycled leather. My recipe is about reusing discarded household waste and industrial waste. The other recipe is a naturally dyed indigo cloth with bioplastic weaving.

Water takes form and solidifies.

BIOPLASTICS HIBISCUS/ AVOCADO/ MINT/ TEA/ COFFEE: COLOR + WATER + BLACK PEPPER (TEXTURE) + STARCH + GLYCEROL + VINEGARETTE

Water adds texture

(ml) Fixed quantities of water

Buckets of water

DYEING YARN + COLOR + WATER: NATURALLY DYED FABRIC

Water dilutes colour and adds texture

Quantity of water depends on the size of the piece quantity

(Litres) from natural water sources

REPURPOSE RECYCLED LEATHER + YARNS + BIOPLASTIC Everything around us Essentially needs water to process All waste needs to find Home

SOURCING: Household/cooking waste Agricultural / plant waste: dead roots Discarded Leather samples from stores Natural dyes from Plants, minerals

Life Giving

RECIPE

Survival

INGREDIENTS + WATER PRODUCT FOR DINNER TABLE

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Growth

What we need is to create circular designs or ways to repurpose. As designers, we can rethink the use of materials and come up with design solutions to use more conscious materials.

Yes, our relation to water changes as well as its need and use. Our activity decides its purpose and use, but water is essential for survival and Growth As an artist and designer community, there are several ways we can help to save water.

Spread awareness: One of the most important things we can do is to spread awareness about the importance of saving water. Artists and designers can use their creativity to create visually appealing campaigns that educate people about the need to conserve water.

Use sustainable materials: Artists and designers can use sustainable materials in their work. For example, recycled materials can be used to create sculptures and installations that draw attention to the need to conserve water, etc.

By working together as an artist and designer community, we can raise awareness about the importance of water conservation and inspire people to take action to save water.

MEHAK P SURANA,

MFA TEXTILE

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Recipe for queerness Liyuan Dai (he/him) MFA Textiles

I have been collecting waste materials for a while. I have had different kinds of waste textiles and yarns. I wash and dye my waste to turn it into a different form that is more suitable for repurposing.

I also have scraps that have been washed in a washing machine, which become smaller pieces with fraying edges, and sometimes yarns. I collected these materials for my project’s construction.

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A recipe for queerness

Ingredients: 1). Waste yarns from the MFA Textiles studio 2). Remaining warp on my loom after weaving 3). Denim scraps from my faculty’s studio 4). Muslin scraps from fashion classrooms 5). Hand-spun woolen yarns mixed with carded waste materials 6). Overlocked scraps

Processes: 1). Keep collecting waste materials until you have significant amounts of diversity 2). Classify the materials and put them in different bags 3). Wash scraps to have fraying edges; scour scraps or/and yarns for natural dying 4). Heat up water for natural dying and dye the materials 5) Set up the loom and weave with different kinds of waste materials

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Recipe for being alive Aneri Shah (she/her) MFA Textiles

Water becomes an essential and hydrating component to my textile and work, which will help absorb the natural dyes I derive from plants. I am using natural dye in my project—specifically, an indigo dye derived from Indigofera tinctoria, and other wood barks, which react with the materials absorbed in the water.

Indigo dye, only requires a small amount of water which can be used for months and years if the vat is maintained properly. This is one of the most sustainable dyes, even among the natural dye because of how it works. After the process, I rework the pH level of water to dispose of it in nature in a way that helps environmentally rather than ruining the growth of the plants and trees. Through repetitive washing of the fibers and fabrics between every dip I attained various shades. I reuse the water to rinse the left-off dye, between every dip and repeat the process of checking and working on the pH. Water is the binder in my making and design processes and strategies.

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Recipe for preserving nature Julieta Gaitán Rubio (she/her) MFA Textiles

Water is an essential component in the production of bioplastics.

Hydrating: One of the key components of bioplastics is a polymer, which needs to be hydrated with water to become malleable and easy to work with.

Dehydrating: After the polymer has been shaped and formed, excess water evaporates, which can have incredible results like shrinking and having curvatures that I found very interesting and working with.

On the other hand, since the bioplastics I’m developing are made from food waste or plant-based materials, they are biodegradable and safe for the environment, which works as a design strategy to improve the harmful effects the fashion industry has on water.

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Recipe for preserving nature Elements Onion skin dye or any food waste you find at home that releases pigment, 200 ml Sodium Alginate, a natural biodegradable polymer derived from brown algae, 4g Glycerin, 8g Dried leaves that you encounter on the street that you wish to preserve

Process Step 1: Collect onion skins or any other food that releases pigment from domestic waste.

Step 2: Boiled the onion skins for 1 hour and let them sit during the night.

Step 3: Filter the onion dye.

Step 4: Place the onion skin dye, the Sodium Alginate, and the glycerin in a pot.

Step 5: Stir gently until homogeneous.

Step 6: Place the mixture into a mold.

Step 7: Let dry and print the dry leaves into the bioplastic.

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Recipe for Dirty Soup Nikita Jain (she/her) MFA Textiles

Water usage plays a significant role in my design research, starting from the initial step of cleaning and washing the textile materials. I use organic soap/detergent to ensure the usage of eco-friendly substances. The yarn/fabric undergoes pre-treatment by immersing it in a natural solution of mordant and water for optimal preparation. To reduce energy consumption, the yarn/fabric is kept overnight instead of being boiled for an extended period. The dyeing process involves exposing the textiles to natural dye materials and dye baths through methods such as boiling and steaming, followed by a final washing process. To ensure responsible waste management, all water waste produced throughout these various stages is disposed off after pH balancing. The collected water waste is disposed of in barren lands or lawns to allow it to be absorbed back into the ground. As the dye materials utilized are natural, the dye solutions are non-toxic, which is an added benefit. Furthermore, solid plant waste generated from the dyeing process is sent for composting, contributing to a sustainable production process.

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Recipe for Waterousel Ashley Yu (she/her) MFA Industrial Design

In this project, I am using rainwater to create an immersive experience for visitors to urban parks. The first iteration of this design is intended for Governors Island, due to the island’s cultural and educational characteristics. This will be an interactive installation, which changes in different weather conditions and throughout the day, in order to encourage people to remember the greatness of nature and to show how we can conserve natural resources.

The installation is meant to be a permanent open structure in the park, surrounded by the landscape. It collects rainwater and draws people in with a powerful water column and misting system. The canopy of the installation can be used as shelter when raining and as a source of shade when the sun comes out. The collected rainwater will be stored underneath and flow through the installation. The misting system is at the edge of the canopy, where it cools and purifies the air and waters nearby plants.

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WATEROUSEL ASHLEY YU

An Interactive City Park Pavilion that Collects and Distributes Rainwater

This project aims to enhance public awareness of our environment, with an installation that integrates with harvesting rainwater. The installation is meant to be a modest, permanent open structure in the urban parks. It encourages people to tune into their senses with natural elements. The collected rainwater will be used in the surrounding landscape, in order to have a more conserving environment.

Water flow diagram

Structure configuration

Scale

Canopy Misting system

Hose

Mist

Bench Drain Light

Filter and store

Scenario of people visiting WATEROUSEL

Scenario during rainy night

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Recipe for synthiesis Jessica Thies (she/her) MFA Industrial Design

Algae are living organisms that live in waterbodies and absorb carbon dioxide. When harvested, they can be used as food sources, pigments, biomaterials, and biofuels.

I am interested in exploring the space of sourcing algae blooms which help remediate waterbodies. I am also interested in further exploring the relationships between humans and living materials, such as culturing algae on textiles which reduces the water use.

Images from Jessica Thies thesis book, May 2023.

synthiesis

jessica thies www.jessicathies.com jessicalynnthies@gmail.com

living materials, active objects

Climate Positive

with the potential of living algae-based materials, we will also have active objects which require care.

Active Objects

Hemp

Materials Innovation

Future Speculation

Living Materials

Algae

what should our relationships look like with living organisms? can we collaborate more with living systems?

speculative footwear prototype

algae-based printing ink for textiles

Textile Evolution Near Future

Today Cotton Jute Linen Pineapple Wool Abaca Leather Nettle Hemp Sisal Silk Cashmere

Natural

Regenerated

Biobased Macroalgae Cellulose Chitin Pectin Starch Keratin Soy Gelatin

Biofabricated Mycelium Bacteria SCOBY Root Systems

Rayon Viscose Lyocell

Polyester Nylon Acyrlic Spandex

Recycled Polyester Recycled Cotton

Synthetic

Engineered Spider Silk from Yeast Lab Grown Collagen

Circular

Living

Living Microalgae Living Mycelium Living Yeast Living Bacteria

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Recipe for re-valueing of a waste stream Mara Zimmerman (she/her) MFA Industrial Design

SEAD products are made from chitin for growing heirloom, local, and natives seeds. Chitin is sourced from the shell byproducts of seafood processing. All products are designed to protect and store seeds as well as cultivate them. They biodegrade and can be planted directly in the ground with seeds. Chitin has biostimulant behavior that helps plants grow and protects them from dangerous pathogens. It also acts as an antitranspirant that helps retain water around seeds in drought conditions.

SEAD is designed for use with heirloom seeds because they hold an important role in biodiverse and sustainable food futures. Unlike the engineered and hybridized products of large-scale agriculture, heirloom plants are genetically diverse and can be grown from seeds and their seeds can be harvested and grown again. Genetic diversity helps individual species adjust to new conditions, diseases and pests, and can aid ecosystems in adapting to a changing environment or severe conditions like drought or flooding.

Heirloom varieties are rooted in indigenous and local communities who first developed, protected, and propagated them. SEAD is dedicated to working with these communities in their efforts to protect bio-cultural diversity and food sovereignty through seed preservation and rematriation projects. Working in partnership to support these groups can strengthen and restore communities that have been marginalized or in decline.

Beyond its capacities in sustainable seed packaging and agricultural tools, SEAD acts as a case study that considers waste as an alternative resource to the extraction of virgin material and invites further investigation into the opportunities chitin and other waste materials present.

Mara Zimmerman April 22, 2023 Decarbonized + Decolonized Dinner Party

SEAD is a collection of biodegradable vessels and packaging that can be planted in the ground with the seeds they hold, adding protection and nourishment to soil. It applies the high material potential of seafood processing waste to facilitate the cultivation of heirloom seeds for small-scale growers in homes and urban gardens. SEAD acts as a case study that considers waste as an alternative resource to the continued extraction of virgin material and invites further investigation into the opportunities that chitin, a shell-sourced biopolymer, and other waste materials present.

Learn more: growsead.com marazimmerman.com

A Recipe for the Re-Valuing of a Waste Stream

How can we look to unconventional, healthier material sources to disrupt wasteful and extractive practices?

Ingredients Chitin flake- a biopolymer extracted from shell discards of the seafood processing industry, avoiding concentrated dumping in oceans and landfills. Bacteria grown from agricultural waste feed on shells and leave behind a pure chitin extract. Also holder of chitosan, a water soluble variant that expands this amazing material’s potential.

Water- from whence the the chitin source originally came, used once again as an aid to the biopolymer’s self-binding Human- fueled by water, required to tinker, test, and execute the recipe. Here to listen to other ingredients and materials, allowing them to guide this project’s direction.

Heat & Pressure- basic elements used to activate chitin’s innate physical properties Glycerol- an organic elastomer derived from vegetable fats that provides flexibility Seeds-organic, heirloom, local, native: these seed varieties hold an important role in sustaining biodiverse ecologies and food access for generations ahead. Chitin is equipped with biostimulant properties that can protect, nourish and improve the cultivation of these important varieties

To make a SEAD vessel or package:

-Fill a vessel forming metal press mold with lightly moist loose chitin flake -Apply high heat and pressure to evaporate any remaining water and allow for chitin to self bind and form one side of a vessel -Mix chitosan with glycerol and water to make a biodegradable chitin-based adhesive -In one half of the chitin vessel, fill with seeds -Brush some chitin adhesive onto the contact edges of the seed filled half -Place the other vessel half on top to encase the seeds within

To make SEAD tape:

-Fill a silicone mold with a thin layer of chitin adhesive -While adhesive is still wet, place seeds at appropriate sowing distances into mold -Allow water to evaporate and tape to fully cure

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Dichotomies of water Lethabo Moraka (she/her) MFA Industrial Design

My recipe took on the form of clay and I molded different types of boats, in an effort to deconstruct the ways in which people from different races, backgrounds and socio economic classes, interact with water.

Each boat is a representation of peoples standards of living, larger boats representing the affluent, who have a playful relationship with water, being able to afford swimming pools, jet skis and yachts, for leisure.

The smaller boats represent fishermans boats, whose purpose is to act as a means of transport, enabling them to catch their daily fish, for commerce and as means of survival. Boats also represent the past, reminding one of the slave trade, where ships transported millions of Africans from their native land, onto their colonisers soil. The spices inside the boats allude to what transpired during the spice trade, which resulted in the trade routes being formed. The buckets illustrate the dichotomy of when an object is used differently; women from many villages use buckets to carry water on their heads, while walking to and from home, to carry out their daily chores. In contrast, smaller buckets are used by children at the beach, to carry sand and water and build sand castles. People’s relationship with water is based on their circumstances.

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RECIPE: 1. Clay 2. Water 3. Spices 4. Cinnamon Sticks

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Amphibian urban interior Zoha Tasneem (she/her) MFA Interior Design Working for two years in Pakistan with high-end clients expanded my curiosity in interior design beyond raditional boundaries. I realized that interior design is an empathetic practice that requires a deep understanding of the people, materials, and environment we work with. I strongly believe that design can challenge social norms, reshape practices, and inspire positive change toward informed choices, with concern for justice and equality.

Being a part of spaces focused on decarbonization and decolonization allowed me to acquire significant knowledge regarding sustainable design solutions and diversity. I also had the opportunity to engage in insightful conversations with experts from different creative fields, such as fashion and product design, as well as lighting design, where I learned about unique approaches to address crucial matters such as climate change, human health, and food and water cultivation.

Through my recent research, I have empathized, comprehended, and designed urban interiors that take climate change and rising sea levels into consideration. Integrated into both present and future urban landscapes, such urban interiors contribute to both human and marine health impacts, serving as production sites for food and communal spaces.

Not only are these spaces designed to address the challenges posed by rising sea levels, but they are also intended to foster a sense of connection between people and their environment through empathy and responsibility. Further explorations involved biomaterials derived from water environments to reduce our dependence on carbon-intensive materials and thus prepare for a decarbonized future.

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Agar Agar + Seaweed

Agar Agar + Coffee

Agar Agar +Turmeric

Agar Agar + Ice Plant

Material Exploration

Agar Agar + Powdered Oyster Shell

Agar Agar + Powdered Oyster Shell+ Turmeric

Main Ingredients 1. Sea Weed 2. Ice Plant 3. Oyster Shells 4. Turmeric as natural dye 1. Agar Agar as binder 2. Water Left to Right 1. After 24 hours 2. After 3 weeks

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Agar Agar +Powdered Oyster Shell + Turmeric

Plastic water bottles

Image 01: The furniture item is part of a workshop (as shown in image 02) that utilizes both oyster and kelp harvesting to promote sustainable water solutions and circular sources for aquatic food. The table top is made with the explored bio-material (Agar Agar + powdered oyster shell + Turmeric). The support structure is made out of plastic bottles, which contributes to reducing environmental harm and prolongs the useful lifespan of the bottles. This choice is critical in mitigating the hazards associated with plastic pollution, which can significantly compromise water quality. As plastic decomposes, it releases toxic chemicals that can pose a severe threat to the aquatic environment as well as human health.

Image 02: Furniture incorporated in Floating Urban workshop interior built on floating platforms that rise and fall with the tide, providing a flexible solution to rising sea levels and fighting food insecurities through the cultivation of seaweed and other oceanic resources. This typology's construction will be primarily fabricated from upcycled materials such as plastic bottles and fishing net as floaters and biomaterials such as kelp leather and oyster concrete shell for furniture (detail shown in image 01).

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Recipe for Bathhaus Brewhouse Tatiana Konstantinidi (she/her) MFA Interior Design

My studio project is a reimagined abandoned brewery in Bushwick, whose structure is preserved and partially converted into a public Bathhaus for restaurant workers.

My design is sustainable in using beer waste as reparative construction materials (beer waste bio cement), glass waste cement from beer bottles, beer waste bioplastics and tableware. The idea was to preserve the current abandoned structure instead of building a new one, where the energy used for the brewing process is used to heat up the water for the baths.

The intention is to give back dignity to restaurant workers who don’t have a place to heal, to connect to, and be cared for.

B

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athhaus rewhouse

Reimagined Ecologies of Food Student: Tatiana Konstantinidi Professor: Maria Linares Trelles

FERMENTING BARLEY

Brewing Process Energy Flow Diagram

BREWING COLLECTING & DRYING

BIOMATERIALS Investigating the Brewery, I collected beer waste or "spent grain" from Kings County Brewers Collective and made biomaterials including beer waste concrete, which can be used as restorative material for missing structural parts in the Cellars, beer waste bioplastics, and tiles from recycled beer bottles.

The materials are meant to tell the history of the structure and people working in these factories.

50 parts Water 1 Part Agar Agar 10 ml Glycerine

1/3 cup beer bottle waste

1/2 cup beer waste

1/2 cup Water

1 cup Water

1 Cup Gypsum

1 Cup white Cement

1L Water Food Coloring (Optional)

Biopalstic | First iteration with color

Beer Waste Tableware & Aggregates

Recycled Glass Gypsym | As Tiling

Beerwaste Concrete | As Structural Material

50 parts Water

60 g Beer waste

1 Part Agar Agar

7.5 g Agar Agar

10 ml Glycerine

5 ml Glycerol

1L Water

250 ml Water

1 Cup Ground Beer Waste

2.6 g Calcium Propionate 15 g Sugar

Beerwaste Biopalstic | As Partitions or even table sous plate

Beer waste Tableware

Beer waste Aggregate

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Water circularity in the Home Sydney Moss (she/her) MFA Interior Design

My work integrates storm water storage into the interior built environment of domestic spaces by designing systems that allow the user to visualize their daily water consumption.

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Felt Oysters Julieta Hernandez (she/her) MFA Interior Design

Ingredients: • Natural merino wool from upstate New York • Natural dyed merino wool • Water • Lavender soap • Oyster shells from Grand Central Oyster Bar They are a recollection of an ethnographical exercise made by Julieta Hernández and Vera Keiter, where we recreated the different oysters we tried and traced them back to their location. The categories divided the oysters in: fishy, meaty, salty, and fresh.

It was an exercise made through conversation with the kind help of the two men behind the oyster bar(bar) and us. We handmade them with our hands the same way we make tortillas.

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Fermenting and decolonizing recipe Deborah Chemonges (she/her) Bachelor of Architectural Studies University of Cape Town, South Africa I am exploring how water can connect people socially and how it can be incorporated in my building tectonics and design. Also how water can be easily collected, reserved, and accessed by people.

Water socially connects people, it brings healing in so many ways. For example, just a warm bath relieves a lot of stress off me every morning, and I feel a lot lighter to start my day.

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D E

Dinner Party Exhibition

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Dinner Party Earth Day began in 1969 when Senator Gaylord Nelson, the junior senator from Wisconsin, recruited activist Denis Hayes to lead teach-ins on college campuses as a way to infuse the energy of student anti-war protests with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution. It went global in 1990, mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting environmental issues onto the world stage. In this spirit, this Decolonized & Decarbonized Dinner Party was a multidisciplinary event bringing together MFA students at Parsons from Industrial Design, Textile Design, and Interior Design as well as contributions from students at the University Cape Town, South Africa.

Earth Day 2023: On a sunny saturday, April 22, students and faculty ferried to New York City’s Governors Island with their dinner party contributions and recipes. A long dinner table was set up outside the Circular Economy Manufacturing Microfactory, adjacent to Earth Matters lavender fields, and with a clear view and access to the Hudson River. The location of the Hudson River was significant as it is the primary body of water that surrounds New York, it is both a boundary between boroughs and an opening for travel and commerce. As the city population has increased so has pollution of the watershed, leading to a range of harmful effects to wildlife and those who eat fish from the river. It is now a focal point for environmental conservation efforts.

The communal tablecloth, embroidered by research assistant and participant Sydney Moss, was laid out.

Parsons MFA participants began to arrange their pieces by their corresponding embroidered signatures. To complete setting the table, students pulled objects provided by MFA Directors and from their surrounding environment, and from Cape Town, South Africa, adding plants, oyster shells, fruits and vegetables to the spread.

MFA Directors Michele Gorman, Yvette Chaparro, and research assistant Sydney Moss, standing in for

4/20

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Decolonized & Decarbonized poster, designed

by Sydney Moss (MFA Interior Design)

MFA Director Preeti Gopinath, read introductions and gave context to the dinner party on Earth Day, as well as land acknowledgments to the Lenape community, their elders past and present, as well as future generations. The MFA Directors invited their students to describe the presence of water in their current work through the format of a “recipe.” As presented by the feminist collective, Cocinas Alterinas, “recipes” act as cartographies, narratives, and repositories of memory by identifying: (1) elements/actors/bodies/users/communities— the “ingredients” (2) specifying qualities/quantities/conditions/ preexistent structures—the “measurements” (3) outlining steps/relations/networks/histories/ interactions/disruptions—the “process”

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Students presented their work, reading off from their prepared recipes developed at the workshop led

by Maria Linares Trelles on April 13. Their recipes demonstrated their offerings as manifestations of relationships to water—showing the changes in ingredients, flavors, and processes caused by water scarcity, communicating the history of colonial structures that shaped their access to water, materializing water consumption in their design practices, and rendering visible the constant exchange of water (vapor, fluids, humidity) among bodies.

Time was taken to chat and celebrate all the hard work that went into their offerings to the dinner party table, while photographer Martin Seck documented each piece. Students were then invited to return their pieces to the earth at Earth Matters composting site, or to the Hudson River. Research assistant Sydney Moss, who experimented with biofiltration techniques using pothos plants and ramshorn snails to create a circular ecosystem that could sustain life and process its own waste returned the sample of clean water she brought as a contribution to the Hudson River.

Special thanks to our research assistants: Sydney Moss and Ashima Yadav.

Participants Liyuan Dai Aneri Shah Valeria Maldonado Mehak P. Surana Neha Bhide Julieta Gaitán Rubio Nikita Jain Ashley Yu Jessica Thies Mara Zimmerman Lethabo Moraka Zoha Tasneem Tatiana Konstantinidi Sydney Moss Julieta Hernandez Dana Barnes Heidi Boulanger Naledi Nelia van der Wat Hape Matheka Siya Tuntwana Deborah Chemonges

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Dinner Party at Governors Island on Earth Day 2023.

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From left: Ashima Yadav, MFA Interior Design; Sydney Moss, MFA Interior Design; MFA Interior Design program director Michele Gorman; MFA Industrial Design program director Yvette Chaparro; and Neha Bhide, MFA Textiles.

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Top: Julieta Gaitán Rubio, MFA Textiles, material research.

Bottom: Students presenting their research at Governor’s island.

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Top: View of the Dinner Party at the Circular Economy Manufacturing factory at Governors Island, Earth Day, 22 April 2023.

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Photogrammetry scan of the Decolonized & Decarbonized Dinner Party Exhibition

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Valeria Maldonado

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Mara Zimmerman

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Tatiana Konstantinidi

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Tatiana Konstantinidi

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Tatiana Konstantinidi

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Nikita Jain

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Dana Barnes

Aneri Shah

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Julieta Gaitán Rubio

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Julieta Hernandez

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Julieta Hernandez

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Neha Bhide Jess Thies

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Jessica Thies

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Valeria Maldonado

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Aneri Shah

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Mehak P. Surana

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Mehak P. Surana

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Mehak P. Surana

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Dana Barnes

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Jessica Thies

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Liyuan Dai

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Resources

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Cocinas Alterinas Workshop 4/4 How can extreme (landscape) conditions for growing food, could result in diverse and inventive recipes?

Which recipes still perpetuate colonial extractivist remnants in our (landscapes)?

What if recipes could open up the space to reimagine our relationship as (landscape) bodies?

How do we make the diverse bodies of water in our kitchens visible?

We would like you to develop a water-based recipe.

Inspired by Silvia Federici’s Beyond the Periphery of the Skin: Rethinking, Remaking, and Reclaiming the Body in Contemporary Capitalism and Astrida Neimanis’s book Bodies of Water, Post Human Feminist Phenomenology, we invite you to pay attention to the multifaceted bodies of water that connect your kitchen to the landscapes around you.

For this exercise, we ask you to break down recipes into their singular components: ingredients, measurements, and processes.

The end result, edible or not, will be as plural and different as you, the maker.

Think about the measurements for this recipe as scales of privilege and access to water. What politics and economies connect your kitchen tab and the Catskill Mountains when you follow the pipe upstream?

Think of the ingredients as material ecologies, social networks, and infrastructures. Notice the spaces and ways you source them, are they then considered commons or commodities?

Think of processes as experiments and design iterations, natural cycles, explorative routes, and situated rituals. Follow the threads that weave in materials, their ancestral techniques, and their colonial traces.

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We would like to decenter our needs as humans by questioning the pace of production and design through non-normative frameworks while evoking Sara Ahmed’s sentiment of reflecting “on use.” By doing so, we want to disrupt the idea of water as a resource only humans can manage to expand it to a system we cohabitate.

We encourage you to use this prompt as a starting point to think and experiment through design and critically reflect on your practices collectively. We hope working with recipes can offer you new insights and access into your own doing and making.

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Open Feedback Workshop 4/13 This year’s Decolonized and Decarbonized Dinner Party invites us to reflect our relationship with water in and through our design practices. As presented during the symposium, water connects “us” across multiple scales and territories—landscapes.

However, access and interaction with water is regulated by power dynamics that reproduce segregation, inequality, and environmental degradation.

In this context, design presents the opportunity to reimagine our relationship with water—as resource, actor, space of exchange— in favor of material transformations that repair, restore, heal, decolonize. To this end, we change the focus from single/ universal outcomes, products, and solutions towards processes, rituals, and networks.

We invite you to describe the presence of water in your current work through the format of a “recipe.” As presented by Cocinas Alterinas, “recipes” act as cartographies, narratives and repositories of memory by identifying: • • •

Ingredients: elements/actors/bodies/users/communities Measurements: specifying qualities/quantities/conditions/ preexistent structures Process: outlining steps/relations/networks/histories/ interactions/disruptions

Furthermore, we invite you to expand the idea of a “recipe” as a written document, and experiment with graphic representation to visualize these “recipes” through diagrams, annotated drawings or sketches, physical models, maps, videos, etc. that center design strategies and making practices as mechanisms to materially transform “landscapes” and foster alternative forms of living together.

On April 22, 2023, Earth Day, we’ll gather again to collectively give thanks and share. We ask you to contribute your recipe and reflection in the form of food, artifact, ritual, or material.

Your offerings to the table will also be manifestations of your relationship to water—showing the changes in ingredients, flavors and processes caused by water scarcity, communicating the history of colonial structures that shaped access to water, materializing water consumption in our design practices,

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rendering visible the constant exchange of water (vapor, fluids, humidity) among bodies...

In this process, we embrace “cooking”—the alchemist-like process of combining and transforming matter—as a design and storytelling method, allowing for other forms of knowledge production based on senses, memory and embodied experience to take place.

Questions to consider: How can extreme (landscape) conditions for growing food, result in diverse and inventive recipes?

What is the relationship between food, making, and waterbodies?

Which recipes still perpetuate colonial extractivist remnants in our (landscapes)?

What if recipes could open up the space to reimagine our relationship as (landscape) bodies?

How do we make the diverse bodies of water in our kitchens visible?

How do we redraw our water systems in the context of colonization?

How do we visualize Indigenous understandings and relationships to water?

How do we develop sustainable building practices within a decolonial framework?

What are the relationships between sustainability, water and food security in design?

What is the future of water and food systems in plural visions of design?

How can we continue indigenous and community based practices and methods through design?

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Decoloniality & Decarbonizing Resources Cocinas Alterinas

Fluid Matters

Liveable Neighbourhoods

Jason Farago, “A Messy Table, A Map of the World,” New York Times May 8, 2022

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Community Aneri Shah (she/her) is an MFA Textiles student at Parsons.

Ashley Yu (she/her) is currently a packaging design engineer at Pegatron. She is a creative and enthusiastic individual with experience in circular economy and public design. She is passionate about creating a more sustainable place universally.

Chisomo Phiri (he/him) is a doctoral student in the School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics at the University of Cape Town (UCT).

His master’s degree was in architectural studies, and is a registered architect with SACAP. He was the resident PhD student with the Livable Neighbourhoods (LN) research project from 2019–22. He is now involved in ES and BAS courses as a facilitator and co-convenor. Chisomo’s research revolves around water scarcity.

Cocinas Alterinas is the collective practice of Mayar El Bakry (Switzerland + Egypt) and Gabriela Aquije Zegarra (Peru).

Mayar is an independent designer and researcher. She holds a BA of Arts in Visual Communication for the Academy of Art and Design Basel. Working in the peripheries of design, she merges diverse practices in her work. Currently, she’s focusing on food and cooking as a means to create spaces of discourses, exchange, and dialogue in, between, and outside of (design) academia. Within her research, she emphasizes cross-cultural exchange, societal relevance, and collaboration. Her approaches are deeply rooted in decolonial and intersectional feminist studies and practices. Next to her research and commissions, she coordinates the Swiss Design Network, helping organize biannual conferences and respective publications.

Gabriela is a landscape architect and design researcher.

She holds an MSc. Design Research (2020) by the COOP program of the Bauhaus Foundation Dessau, Anhalt University

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of Applied Sciences, and the Humboldt University of Berlin.

Since then, she combines her former landscape design practice and temporary installation design with her current focus (and passion) on food systems research. She developed a way of working that is anchored in a collaborative practice: either gardening or cooking collectively, as well as with public performances and design experiments. She takes this holistic way of creating to the MAKE/SENSE Ph.D. program in practice-based research in art and design, hosted by the FHNW Academy of Art and Design in Basel and the University of Art and Design in Linz. Her project “Culinary Re-turn: gastro-political ecologies of indigenous cooking landscapes in Peru” explores cooking as an aesthetical, interspecies, and decolonial design practice.

Dana Barnes (she/her) holds a degree in psychology and interior design and works towards racial justice in design. Bringing her own Queens, New York community groups into the design process, Dana engages in a participatory design process to make sure all voices are heard, designing AS a community. She engages handson mediums such as knitting and ceramics to create spaces of knowledge sharing and listening, towards black joy and healing.

David J. Lewis (he/him) is the Dean of The School of Constructed Environments, Professor of Architecture, and a founding principal of LTL Architects (Lewis.Tsurumaki.

Lewis), a design intensive architecture firm located in New York City. At Parsons he has served as Director of the Master of Architecture program, the Director of Design Workshop program, and on the faculty since 2002. He leads courses on the intersection of architectural representation, material practices, and history.

Deborah Chemonges (she/her) University of Cape Town, Bachelor of Architectural Studies.

Hape Matheka (she/her) University of Cape Town Architecture, Planning and Geomatics.

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Heidi Boulanger (she/her) is an architect, designer, and researcher. She obtained her M.Arch (prof)(cum laude) from UP in 2013, and practiced as a professional architect and independent researcher before joining the University of Cape Town as a full-time academic in 2021. Her work focuses on regenerative practice and architecture as systemic design through the lenses of biophilia, ecological urbanism, landscape systems, bioremediation, and rewilding. Her praxis and pedagogy try to merge architecture, landscape and ecology, and explores themes of critical regionalism, new vernacular architecture, adaptive re-use, circular design strategies, bio-materiality, water and “waste.”

Heidi is currently a convenor in the BAS3 programme and a member of the Future Water Institute at UCT. Jessica Thies (she/her) is a designer and sustainability consultant with a focus on materials research. She is currently a Postgraduate Material Health Researcher at the Parsons Healthy Materials Lab. She has a background in textiles and graduated with an MFA in Industrial Design from Parsons. Jess is passionate about using circular design and biofabricated material innovation to drive us to a more regenerative future.

Julia van den Hout (she/her) is an architecture and design writer, editor, and curator. She is the principal of Original Copy and Architecture Curator/ Program Director at Art Omi. Julieta Gaitán Rubio (she/her) is a Colombian textile artist and designer with strengths in Biodesign and natural dyeing. She is interested in sustainability and material exploration and passionate about imperfections in natural changes and processes. She has recently incorporated nature into her work, creating a dialogue between textile, decomposition, and time.

Julieta Hernandez (she/her) is a double degree graduate student who engages in the interdisciplinary space between interior, light, graphic and product design. From Mexico, Julieta engages both an autoethnographic and ethnographic approach that addresses culture, identity, community, memory, and radical belonging into all of her designs. Radical kindness leads this body of work that culminates into poetic, sensorial experiences represented through experimental collages, along highly

technical drawings. Julieta will transform the field of interior design through a highly unique intersection of disciplines and sensitive cultural bridging.

Lethabo Cleo Moraka (she/her) is a multidisciplinary designer from Johannesburg, South Africa. Her background is in Interior Design, Fashion Design/ Buying and she is currently completing her Masters in Industrial Design.

Liyuan Dai (he/him) is an MFA Textiles student at Parsons.

Mara Zimmerman (she/her) is a specialist on the Prototyping Team at Newlab, a part-time faculty of Product Design at Parsons School of Constructed Environments and recently cofounded Souper Studio, a product licensing company. She is an avid maker with a background in building and commits her practice to the exploration and development of sustainable materials and their applications in an effort to amend wasteful and extractive practices.

Maria Linares Trelles (she/her) is a DC and New York-based architect working across design, research, and curatorial practices. Her work examines the sociopolitical forces shaping the built environment, focusing on design’s complicit role in constructing sites of extraction.

Martin Seck (he/him) is a visual artist, freelance commercial photographer, and educator based in New York City. He has completed numerous editorial, portrait, product design, and architectural photography projects for clients such as the MoMA, The New School, Pentagram Design, the Prospect Park Alliance, and Etsy.

Mehak P. Surana (she/her) is currently pursuing an MFA in Textiles at Parsons. She graduated from the National Institute of Fashion Technology, India as a Fashion Designer, specializing in Couture Garment Design and Construction with a minor in Fashion Communication.

Michele Gorman (she/they) is the director of the MFA Interior Design Program and

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assistant professor of Interiors, Objects, and Technologies in the School of Constructed Environments. Michele has designed and built a number of award-winning objects, exhibitions, and spaces and is a co-founder of “The Radically Inclusive Studio” with colleagues in South Africa and Australia. She has collaborated with interdisciplinary colleagues and students in Parsons to launch the Decolonized & Decarbonized Dinner Party Talks + Workshops in 2022.

Michele is committed to addressing social and environmental justice within the profession and academy.

Neha Bhide (she/her) is an MFA Textiles student at Parsons.

Naledi (she/her) University of Cape Town Architecture, Planning and Geomatics.

Nelia van der Wat (she/her) obtained her bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture from the University of Pretoria in 2019. After a year of internship, she completed her BLA (Hons) at the University of Cape Town in 2021. In 2022, she worked as a Junior Landscape Architect for Square One Landscape Architects in Cape Town. In 2023, she returned to the University of Cape Town to obtain her MLA. Nelia is interested in green infrastructure, biodiversity and landscape architectural theory.

Nikita Jain (she/her) is an Indian textile designer and natural dyer based in New York. Pursuing an MFA in Textiles at Parsons School of Design, she blends diverse techniques in her work. With a focus on reducing water consumption in dyeing, she seeks sustainable solutions for textile production. Nikita’s passion lies in combining traditional processes with innovative approaches to create a positive impact in the fashion industry.

Preeti Gopinath (she/her) is Associate Professor in the School of Fashion and founding Director of the Textiles MFA program at Parsons, The New School, in New York. A graduate of the National Institute of Design (India), Preeti is an internationally experienced textile designer, CAD expert and an acclaimed educator with over 25 years of international experience in both industry and the classroom. Preeti works closely with her talented faculty team to mentor students in the groundbreaking Textiles MFA program at Parsons, where students combine artistry and

craft with technology to develop hybrid textiles including bioplastics, that authentically address issues of sustainability, climate change, injustices around migration, and the preservation of traditional crafts.

Siyabulela Ntuntwana (he/him) is a postgraduate scholar at the University of Cape Town, pursuing a master’s in urban design. Siya has already made an impact in integrating design with social justice advocacy and activism. His passion for design, combined with his drive to create a positive impact, led him to work on various projects focused on human-centred design for maternal care in Ethiopia and Bangladesh.

Sydney Moss (she/her) is a MFA Interior Design student at Parsons. She holds a degree between English Literature and Interior Design, and is a well recognized DIY designer, upholster, and costumer working in the Broadway shops. Sydney has elevated DIY interiors by addressing critical issues within the context of climate change: circular design economies, water reclamation, participatory design strategies, decarbonizing our spaces, and radical materials made from bio waste.

Sydney is a master of spatial storytelling around complex issues and makes them accessible through our everyday interiors and media. Sydney will be a powerful agent of change within the field of interior design.

Tatiana Konstantinidi (she/her) is an MFA Interior Design student at Parsons.

Valeria Maldonado (she/her) is an architect an artist from Lima, Peru. Currently, she is pursuing an MFA in Textiles at Parsons School of Design.

Yvette Chaparro (she/her) is the director of the MFA Industrial Design program and assistant professor of Product and Industrial Design, in the Parsons School of Constructed Environments. She is a practicing industrial designer at Yvette Chaparro Studio, and is currently a PhD Candidate at Transart and Liverpool John Moores University.

Zoha Tasmeen (she/her) is an MFA Interior Design student at Parsons.

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Program Overviews The MFA Industrial Design program prepares students to negotiate the seemingly contradictory forces at play in the growing product design industry. They explore the way goods can be produced in both localized contexts (a “making in place” approach, which relies on regionalized needs and constraints) and globalized contexts (employing design principles focusing on universal needs). Students combine advanced making skills with critical inquiry and hone their skills using Parsons’ state-of-the-art product prototyping and testing facilities.

The MFA Interior Design program at Parsons is uniquely positioned to lead the discourse and practice of interior design in the 21st century. Inaugurated in 2009 at Parsons, the school where formal interior design education began, this graduate program builds on more than 100 years of leadership in the field. Design as a social practice is the program’s guiding philosophy. Students explore design as a force for change, a means of environmental stewardship, and a tool for shaping experiences.

The MFA Textiles program at Parsons is a community of makers, designers, and scholars exploring and creating textiles—from locally crafted materials to 3D knitted matter to hand-embellished fabrics—and introducing innovation in textile-based industries and theory. Students investigate these dynamics, dissolving the boundaries between technology and craft. In the process, they prepare for the growing array of creative and professional opportunities related to textiles in fashion design, product design, interior design, textiles research, set design, fine arts, architecture, and hybrid fields.

Acknowledgments We are grateful for the extended contributions to this book, which effectively reflect our collaboration. The impact of the whole has proven to be greater than the sum of the individual participants, and we hope this will inspire more students to courageously address climate justice, together as a Community.

We feel empowered and thankful to be part of this incredible interdisciplinary community at Parsons.

We thank all students, staff, faculty, and guests who participated in the symposium in April, namely, Gabriela Aquije Zegarra and Mayar El Bakry of Cocinas Alterinas, Chisomo Phiri and Heidi Boulanger from the University of Cape Town, and Maria Linares Trelles from Parsons.

Thank you to Barent Roth, for his invitation to hold our Earth Day Dinner Party at the Circular Economy Manufacturing in Governor’s Island, to Sydney Moss and Ashima Yadav for your work as Research Assistants to this project. The wonderful photography is by Martin Seck.

And we thank Parsons School of Design’s School of Constructed Environments, the School of Fashion, the SCE School Funds, and Parsons Cross-School Funds that supported the launching of the symposium, workshops, the Dinner Party, and this book

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Image Credits

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Cover

Created by Midjourney

45

Aneri Shah

1

Created by Midjourney

46

Martin Seck

4

Heidi Boulanger

47

Julieta Gaitán Rubio

9

Photo contributed by Directors

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Martin Seck

Chaparro, Gorman and Gopinath

49

Nikita Jain

11

Yvette Chaparro

50–51

Ashley Yu

14

Created by Midjourney

52–53

Jessica Thies

16-17

Michele Gorman

55

Mara Zimmerman

18

Photo by Heidi Boulanger

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Martin Seck

23

Top: Heidi Boulanger

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Zoha Tasneem

Bottom: Kaart van het fort de

60–61

Tatiana Konstantinidi

Goede Hoop, c. 1656, National

62–63

Sydney Moss

Archief, NL-HaNA_4.VEL_803

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Yvette Chaparro

25

Chisomo Phiri

65

Michele Gorman

27

Chisomo Phiri

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Deborah Chemonges

29

Cocinas Alterinas

68–69

Martin Seck

31

Michele Gorman

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Martin Seck

32

Top and bottom: Michele Gorman

74–75

Martin Seck

33

Top and bottom: Michele Gorman

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Michele Gorman

34–35

Martin Seck

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Top: Michele Gorman

36–37

Valeria Maldonado Morales

39

Neha Bhide

78–79

Michele Gorman

40–41

Mehak P. Surana

80–123

Martin Seck

42-43

Liyuan Dai

Bottom: Martin Seck