Theory Essay

ENVT-1104 Contemporary Theories of Landscape

Textiles as Kami

Reina Kosugi 001134893

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ABSTRACT In this Essay, I would explore the way in which humans interact within environments as well as developing animism ways to see the natural ecosystem to figure out how we would live with these surroundings together. In my point of view, landscape architecture is a process of human interaction within the environment as a part of the urban ecosystem.

For the first chapter, how humans are positioned in the environment is explained from Tim Ingold’s view with an example of Japanese animism of nature. In detail, looking from the perspective from more than human, all the creatures and non living things have their own soul and they can be gods, kami. Each of them have their own universe and that even beyond their worlds.

In Chapter 2, based on the relationships that I figured out in Chapter 1 , how landscape architecture can be defined as the process of the interaction of humans within the environment would be explained. To be specific, my design studio project, which is called LIFE of TEXTILES, uses examples of the way materials, textiles, live their life within the site and how humans could learn their universe from making. The site is located at the Queens Market, Newham, London.

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Currently, living in sustainable ways is a huge concern across the world. I would say, landscape architecture is not an exception, so what could we do to protect our natural resources? Finding better recycling systems or better production systems might be possible ways. However, I am going to explore more fundamental philosophical ways to see in which humans could position ourselves within the natural ecosystem as one part of the whole beautifully balanced universe.

In this essay, the animism of ways to see the world plays a very important role and brings us to the further discussion. It might be difficult to find the sustainable solutions from the human perspective, but it would be innovative to find it from the non-human perspective. It can also be something that can rediscover an interesting mindset in everyday life for us. It is an enlightenment of your mind to a different level to be able to feel a sense of being a natural universe itself. In this sense, space is not something objective, but it is you, yourself, and beyond.

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(Fig 1) Photo of Japanese Garden

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Chapter 1: How could we see the world from a “more than human(1)” perspective ?

At the beginning, understanding “more than human” perspective from the current anthropology theory is explored. There have been various discussions on the relationship between humans and nature for many years. To sum up, there are two main ways to see nature, one is from biology; the other is from indinuaous perspective (Ingold, 2021) . In detail, Ingold (2021, pp.14) describes as “Whereas the biologist claims to study organic nature ‘as it really is’, the anthropologist studies the diverse ways in which the constituents of the natural world figure in the imagined, or so-called ‘cognised’ worlds of cultural subjects.”

Moreover, in these animism ways to see nature, understanding means more experiencing than knowing. It is not knowledge but wisdom. It is not objective but subjective. It is not data but stories. It is only able to learn from your personal experiences.

In addition, Ingold (2019) considered these experiences and found out what life is, the process of learning, that is anthropology. In this sense, nature is not a separate object from us, but a harmonious balance that includes us, which is constantly transforming. And this balanced body in which various things are intertwined is called meshwork by Ingold (2019). Seen from a distance, it seems as a fixed object. On the other hand, if you look closely, you can see that they are not “objects”, but “things”.

It’s not a single product, it’s the process of production itself. From my perspective, meshwork has a similar concept of “cosmos” from Alexander von Humboldt (1845) .

Cosmos is, as I understand, a world in which all the things from earth to sky are living actively. It is a world of earth and sky, fish and water, bodies and mind, trees and soil, always both of two coming together. In this concept, meshwork is a beautifully balanced world actively living; this living is an ecology of life.

Then, combining the concept of Ingold’s meshwork and Humboldt’s cosmos into traditional Japanese animism, it would be a beautifully balanced world for me. Moreover, I am part of the world at the same time; the world is myself as well as expanding beyond the border of being me. That is why this concept is considered only being able to be archived by personal experiences.

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(Fig 2) Photo of the City of Kyoto with mountains

(1) Landscape Architecture is not something fixed or exists by themselves, it existed as an object in someone’s environment while interacting within their mechanism. Mechanism can be different depends on tools or creatures; Each environments has their own perception and production of effects. As Uexküll (2013) explained Tick mechanism in detail as an example how it works, mechanism can be shown as a diagram as a circular system include and interact with landscape architecture as an object. (Fig.1, Uexküll, 2013, pp.49) Object qualities would be defined by perception mark in the mechanism, effect mark would impact on the objects. Even sometimes environments have not been changed due to some mechanisms do not work for years, as having different time scale than human being. From this point of views, landscape architecture can only be created as a result of the collective of interactions from living creatures’ mechanisms (Fig.2) Let’s see sewing machine as a perception tool for my project, creating exchanged from waste to children’s clothes in Queen’s Market. Sewing machine can only recognise objects weather it can be sew or not, so they can only read textile information from the site, they understand how it have been changed and shaped from the textile waste there. By reading existing textile, they would create their effects as patchwork, which in turn affect to the objects themselves.

Since constantly changing the object, the cycle cannot be finished.

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Based on arguments above, the perspective of Japanese animism are looking through further in detail. First of all, the word of animism was used by Edward Tylor (1871) as indiginous religions in anthropology discipline. Animism is generally a spirit belief of which not only humans, but all animals, plants and inanimate objects have a soul of their own. Not only about having a soul, but also sometimes they are seen as kami (god). For that, as described in a word “yo rozu no kami (eight hundred gods) “, the surrounding environments are seen as a collective of gods. It was started in ancient times, and still exists to some rooted in a Japanese mind unconsciously or consciously. For me personally I had realised for the first time that I have these perspectives in my mind, after I have been living outside of Japan. That is because it is the indiginous belief that we believe so naturally and even never had doubt or mentioned since it is something fundermental.

Talking about experiences, there are some examples which process itself means than outcomes or objects. There are words of “dou”(way) and “kata”(form) for arts and martial arts, such as chado (way of tea), aikido(way of harmonising energy), and kado (way of flower) and so on; and all of them have kata as how you behave during the way. In these arts, learners are expected to practise enough times to move without consious; we consider the experiences of them and these collective actings is art rather than neither objects (such as tea cups or tea houses) nor outcomes (tea). In addition, I recognised the necessity to spend an amount of time, often at least over a decade, and continuous experiences to reach enough understanding of what the art is. Sheets-Johnstone (2022, pp.4) describes that moment-by-moment inventiveness of practice, that is, in its improvisatory quality as it carries on m in the midst of things, always responsive to what is going on in the surroundings. Sheets-Johnstone also mentioned focusing on the processes of social interactions which are make, use , consume, or value rather than made objects, which could apply to craftsmanship, as they think through making with materials not to make materials. There is a certain sense of techniques of bodies. (Lave,1990, pp.13)

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(Fig 3) Japanse Folk Monsters on the walls of Kofukuji

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Trees also can be seen as one of the important elements of Japanese animism, huge old trees are often considered an important kami(god). When monks trained in the mountains, they would see trees transformed into Buddha.They also made carvings on living trees as part of their ascetic practices. Carving such trees to form the shape of a Buddha was also part of their ascetic practice, and this too is probably due to the animistic view that sees value in the experience itself. Enku, in particular, is said to have made more than 100,000 Buddhist statues.

(Fig 4) One of the tree carvings by Enku.

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Another example is a painting depicting a waterfall as a god. Katsushika Hokusai was good at depicting natural conditions in his own way. This painting is one of picture from a book of a tour of waterfalls in various countries. In the work, it looks more like a terrifying creature than a waterfall. It can be said to be a good representation of the artist’s respect, including fear, for nature.

(Fig 5) Drawings of water walls by Hokusai.

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Chapter 2: How landscape architecture is created when seeing from this “more than human” perspective; using LIFE OF TEXTILES Project(2) as an example.

We went through the perspective of Japanese animism in the first chapter, then I am going to more detail; materials. As I discussed, materials, as same as all the things in the beautiful balanced universe, have a soul and they could be a god as well. If we apply the above-mentioned idea of animism to materials, the materials should appear different from the materials we have been thinking about in everyday life. The culture of the material should not be something that ends up as a product, but should seem to have a life of its own, and to ruminate on their life. That is, there is a material life, a material flow.Applying these theories to my project, called LIFE of TEXTILES, and exploring the way in which we could see texistiles as an example of material and how it works in reality. To sum up, textiles work as materials, and markets work as ecosystems.

(2) Queen’s Market, also known as Queen Street Market, is located on Green Street next to the Upton Park underground station, in Newham, London. Queen’s Market was started more than 110 years ago; importantly, it has been developed with diverse local communities. Also, the market has changed its forms and locations over the years. The first record was in Stratford in 1890, which moved to the Queen’s Road in 1911. Finally It moved to the current location in Green Street in 1963. The market has changed their forms to the fixed shape from the flexible/informal spatial spaces. Current metal-framed closed architecture was built in 1969; before that, there was an open air market on the current site. There is still some room of flexibility within the central space, where capacity is 80 stalls.

Most importantly, Queen’s Market has played a significant role in providing economic and social capital to the local communities. Mintchev & Moore (2017) specified that Newham’s average household income in 2013 was £34,260 recording the second lowest in London, and significantly lower than the London average of £39,100. Due to this financial situation, the market supplies affordable fresh foods, as Rubin et al.(2006) indicated that items bought at the market were on average 53 per cent cheaper than at a local ASDA. In addition, it generates local economies, as well as creating job opportunities, and encouraging small local entrepreneurs especially for minority ethonic group who are likely to face particular barriers when starting businesses.

Butler and Hamnett (2011) highlighted that East London, including Newham, has become one of the most ethnically diverse places in Britain. It has five ethinic groups, (White British, Indian, African, Bangladeshi, and Pakistani) that each make up 10% or more of the population. (CoDE,2013) The market has helped strengthen the social capital of the surrounding area and these diverse local communities. One is that they offer a distinctive ethnic and cultural mix of products for the specific needs for ethnic communities. Another is that several events and festivals have taken place on this site. There are some positive aspects to contribute to local social capital; Nevertheless, Newham recorded the highest perceptions of neighbourhood anti-social behaviour in London as well as the lowest life-satisfaction (Department of Communities and Local Government, 2010) Currently Newham council is working on to tackle these issues. Since the market is currently owned by the Newham Council, it might be possible for the Queen’s market to take some roles to cope with.

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atement

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aste everyday. Even to our life, we ated after putting e management has communication omote sustainable m.

occupies 5.83% of Also, in Enrope, or incinerators hes are kept pros. Yet, do we really for ourselves?

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TH COMMUNITIES; seem difficult to othersIt can be a communities to roduction. Remakhancing people’s y, and keeping the

Place for communities to intract

Textile waste as art pieces

LIFE OF TEXTILE

Making a place for the life of textile; by reproducing clothes from waste textile, reciprocating materials and products, and enhancing community relationship through the circulair activities.

(Fig 6) Posters of LIFE OF TEXTILES

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Textile waste occupies 5.83% of Municipal Solid Waste. (USEPA,2018) Also, in Europe, 87% of clothing ends up in landfills or incinerators. (WasteAge, 2022) Nevertheless, clothes are kept produced for the market to make profits. To stop this one direction consumption, the project aims to bring a sustainable and community focused textile waste management circular system by opening it up for society. In other words, from textile perspective, we are creating a place for LIFE OF TEXTILE. Currently, wastes are treated in an unaware manner and often considered as useless things. It is, however, just a condition of the material, as we discussed before, it is a resource and can be transformed to anything. In this project, textile waste takes an important role as an art piepies of the site as living creatures, and people who visit here could experience the way how they live, compared to their life is hidden due to the worldwide supply chain production.

Looking at the life of textiles, which starts with production whether it could be cotton, polyester, nylon, or rayon, and then goes to the yarn production where they are ready to become fabrics. From this process, textile life often depends on someone’s design, the way in which they could be a part of the clothes or products. After that, cutting and sewing can be more likely to be done by an individual person than a machine production, which means there are parts of making though thinking at the same time we could have opportunities to learn from textiles. Transportation is a huge step for them as they often travel long distances, for example from China to England while exchanging many ways of transport. Finally they arrived at the retail shop to be cheskes by humans, and then most likely to end up in the landfill.

The proposal market system includes all of the life of textiles, from collecting waste clothes/ fabrics and reproducing new products, there are seven processes that happen in the site; washing, drying, dying, cutting, sewing, ironing, and retailing. The act of reproducing clothes and sewing can seem as experiments of making which we could think through making and learn about the universe. Inglod (2019, pp.3) also argues that “focusing on the processes of social interactions which are make, use , consume, or value rather than made objects. “ Even though the system starts on a very small scale in this Queens market, it has potential to expand to the wider world, to London, to the world, same as our universe expands beyond ourselves.

(1822 words)

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(Fig 7) Textiles in landfill from Waste Age, the Design Museum (2022)

Textile supply chain

Generaly clothes need to take several steps to be produced.

Cotton production

Transport While manifacturing textile, materials and products are transported many times, which is significant disadvantage for our sustainability.

End-of-life and disposal

Polyester and nylon resin production

Current Textile Supply Chain

Wool pulp production for rayon

Wearing and using textiles

Queens Market’s Sustainable Chain

Yarn Production

Retail

Dyeing fabric

Cut / Sew

(Fig 8) Textiles supply chain diagram

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Appendix:

Walking - Methodology When we walk, we are often in routine; we are unconscious or conscious about where we are heading to not the current environment itself. It is, however, can be seen as a violence, according to Bernard Tschumi, between the space and individuals, or even materials. (Fig.1) Textile, for example, often change their shapes depends on the surrounding environments, such as wind or human behaviours. In this sense, textile is having collective negotiation with their surroundings all the time. What kinds of negotiation do they have? When? How? Who has advantages in this negotiation? I will explore that.

When to document: When I see anything related to textile.

What to document: Textile, especially how they affected by their surroundings.

Actions: Testing actions that I can negotiate with the textile, which can be touching, fanning, etc.

Direction: Following the textile, when I found, or following the direction that they are showing me.

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