EVENTS
Languaging as change making
Languaging (after the Chilean biologists Maturana and Varela, 1987) is the magical co-creation between language, perceptions and actions. As a metadesigner I work with languaging as a practice for making change at the level of paradigms. In this film/slideshow, I share some origins of languaging, how it can be a meta action for powerful change and examples from my work as a researcher, educator and activist. The footage is harvested inside and within 100 metres around my studio in North London because I insist that we can and must talk about global challenges from wherever we are. There are also images and footage from research projects.
Languaging as change making.
Design Mathilda Tham, 2024.
The film is part of A Collection of Change, an anthology by my colleagues and I at the Department of Design, Linnaeus University, published in 2024. Watch the film here.
Hållbar lördag – Sustainable Saturday
Imagine that fashion is not synonymous with shopping, industry and the market but can be created and re-created by everyone! And what if sustainability does not require less fashion but more creativity and confidence in relation to fashion? This is what I talked about at Sustainable Saturday, a whole day of talks and workshops about sustainability for the public – from food and fashion to farming and tourism and much in between. It is organised by Folkuniversitet, Swedish organisation for lifelong learning.
Confidence and creativity in fashion at Hållbar lördag.
Sustainable Saturday took place in November, 2023. Read pre-event interview here.
Falling in Love with Complex Systems
What if fear of systems and complexity were a significant barrier to urgent change? What if we didn’t save our planet because it was just all too embarrassing?
This talk explores how we can design capacities for working as change agents from within complex systems. This includes how we can love and not be scared of systems, how we can collaborate across diverse communities of knowledge and practice – and how we can make language that works as bridges instead of fences. The talk draws on transdisciplinary and co-creative research in the contexts of the global fashion sector, regional housing, an ageing society, caring for forests, as well as design education for change agents. This work is informed by feminist, decolonial, post-growth perspectives, systems thinking and action research, as well as sea swimming, playing with food, talking with ants and singing in the rain.
Falling in Love with Complex Systems.
Design Mathilda Tham, 2024.
Keynote lecture at RSD11, Possibilities & Practices of Systemic Design. Systemic Design Association. University of Brighton. 13 October, 2022. Watch here.
Earth Logic – handling our future with care at Stockholm +50
June 2022 marked the 50 year anniversary of the first United Nations conference on the environment in Stockholm. As part of the Stockholm +50 activities, the Earth Logic project hosted three events at Stockholm Kulturhuset. One event invited fashion stakeholders to radically imagine fashion. A second event joined people and organisations working with change in dialogue on how we can strengthen our efforts by collaborating. The third event explored the role and power of citizens to work locally with urgent change.
Earth Logic – handling our future with care at Stockholm +50.
Design Hanna Bergman, 2022.
The Earth Logic project is a collaboration between Kate Fletcher and I. For Stockholm +50, we collaborated with Marika Haeggman and Fredrik Moberg, Alba Eco/Stockholm Resilience Centre who summarised the Earth Logic plan in a 7 points statement, available here.
Logic and love – Tender Transformation
The longer I work with change the more often I realise that there is no such thing as friction-less change and that those of us working with change by necessity are front line workers in friction, meeting anger, despair, frustration in the people we meet as well as in ourselves. In this episode of Tender Transformation the combination of working with science and thoughts and emotions was the focus, and I described how Earth Logic must also be Earth Love for real transformation to take place.
Logic and love at Tender Transformation.
Design Tender Transformation, 2022.
Logic and love from 2022, in Tender Transformation a pod about vulnerability in processes of change, by Pernilla Glaser and Rebecca Vinthagen. Listen here.
Earth Logic – Grow out of growth
Until very recently, a postgrowth conversation has been taboo in the fashion sector which is dominated by fast fashion business models. The Earth Logic project has helped pave the way for exploring fashion futures outside and beyond economic growth. That’s why the conversation Kate Fletcher and Mathilda Tham organised during Copenhagen Global Fashion Summit in October 2020 was called ‘game-changing’. Together with post-growth scholar Giorgos Kallis, social entrepreneur Safia Minney, and journalist Daniel Penny we addressed different aspects of shifting to a smaller fashion sector. Watch the discussion here.
Post-growth fashion.
Film by Copenhagen Fashion Summit, 2020.
Stop consuming, start reflecting
What triggers over-consumption? And how is it possible to change consumption behaviours?
In this pod I talked about how understanding fashion as relationships instead of things can open up new ways of being with fashion. For example, imagine if your jumper were a dog? How would you look after it?
With podcast hosts Anders Ohlsson and Simon Kristoffersson.
Photo by Linnaeus University, 2018.
Stop consuming, start reflecting is an episode in the pod Snillen Spekulerar (geniuses speculate) published by Linnaeus University, interview by Anders Ohlsson and Simon Kristoffersson, 2018. Listen here.
How can designers free design?
The sustainability imperative requires that we REDO the products, systems and paradigms we are part of. Yet, our entangled habits and fear can stop us from engaging in profound processes of change. This talk, explores the man-madeness of the systems we live by, and therefore the possibility to undo and remake systems. To make supportive instead of detrimental and violent systems, design needs to free itself from limiting ties – such as the economic growth logic. The talk draws on experiences from education, research and play to discuss both the promise and responsibility of freeing design.
How can designers free design?
Film by REDO Cumulus International Design Conference, 2017.
Keynote lecture at REDO Cumulus International Design Conference, Kolding School of Design, 2017. Watch here.