First Round of Fish Images
Visual Interpretations of a "school" of fish
Logo Inspirations – Knots
Abstract Interpretations of Knots
Images of Various Fishing Knots
Images of Celtic Knots
Ted Ames via Skype this week
MacArthur Fellow and beloved fisherman Ted Ames joined us via Skype last night for an hour of illuminating discussion about Maine’s fisheries practices. We are intrigued by the ways in which Ted described Area Management practices and the formation of Fishermen Councils to produce self-organizing patches of fishing areas along the inshores of Maine. This patchiness amounts to about 30,000 square miles of coastal waters, in which the boundaries of fishermen are politically and economically produced through these two regulatory engines. What an eye-opener! As we work hard to develop visual logics about the ocean’s patchiness, this was a tremendous moment.
We are particularly keen on one of his papers, “Putting Fishermen’s Knowledge to Work: The Promise and Pitfalls.” Please have a read.
A very warm thank you to you, Ted! Let us continue developing these conversations into something tangible.
Invitation for Community Leaders Draft 1
We have evolved from a world that is mostly comprised of ocean. Our lives—as both humans and fish—have become interdependent throughout time, leading to entanglements across the boundaries where land and the ocean meet.
We are rapidly losing sight of our connection to the ocean.
The members of NAMA, Spurse, and Parsons The New School for Design, are currently approaching this issue as a design opportunity to reevaluate the roles of all organisms nested within these entanglements. We are developing a mobile system that will activate and catalyze new relations among oceanic ecosystems, land-based ecologies, fishing industries, and consumer practices. This system aims to invite citizens into a transformative process of active engagement, through which they become more aware of their connection to the ocean.
One of our key goals is to prompt humans to transcend their roles as passive consumers. We are developing a social laboratory that will serve as a catalytic vehicle for the formation of mobile communities and active research. Over time, this laboratory will comprise of an area for community discussion, for scientific analysis and data collection, for cooking and serving a meal, and for archiving research, writings, and other ideas produced by participants.
As of now, this mobile system lives within a series of portable units that will aid participants in a series of tasks, which are geared to shift humans’ view of themselves and their relationship to the ocean. These units y will serve a number of functions, including:
- A means to store and display collected information
- Sites geared for testing, cooking, and eating fish
- Forums for community discussion and debate
- Sites for research, workshops, and presentations
We plan to bring this experience to locations where there is a strong overlap among all the citizens involved in coastal fisheries including fishing communities, marine biologists, government regulators, and wholesalers. As the leaders of such a coastal community, we invite you to contribute your thoughts concerning the issues we are working to address. We warmly welcome any ideas you may have on the subject presented in this letter as well as any other related topics. You post your feedback on our team’s development blog, www.ourexhibit.com.
We would also like to cordially welcome you to attend one of the many development workshops we will hold during the upcoming year. These would allow you to actively engage in a discussion with our design team as well as leaders in other coastal communities across the nation. The potential dates and locations for these workshops are:
Month, Day, Year –City
Month, Day, Year –City
Month, Day, Year –City
Month, Day, Year –City
You can go to www.ourexhibit.com/workshops to RSVP to any of these workshops.
Your contributed feedback is vital to the development of our exhibit, and will certainly guide us as we move forward in our efforts to shift humans’ view of their relationship with the ocean.
Panel 1: Exhibit Matrix
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This diagram shows the basic logic of the exhibition. Beginning from the big picture to the actual details of the exhibit and beyond. It is organized around the questions: who, why, when, where, what. Each answer flows into the question in the next column.
Panel 2: Three Nodes of Entanglements
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Note: this diagram shows the logic of our three areas of intervention. The idea for the interventions/incubators is based upon the idea of CSFs (community supported fishing — which is based upon community supported farming). And how this would lead to interactions with the exhibit. Three logics are: Community Supported Fishing, Community Supported Science, and Community Supported Eating. The goal is to transform the roles of consumers, fishermen, and scientists.
Panel 3: Modular Kits
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Here is the breakdown of the modular units to be included in our proposed exhibit. The kits aid the visitors in completing a series of tasks including: fishing, storing, testing, cooking, serving/eating, and cleaning. There are also two kits–a library and a media station– that are geared towards data collection and research.
Panel 4: Incubator Design Logic
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Pictured here are a set of shapes, derived from aperiodic tile patterns, on which we based the design of the modular incubator units. This design logic affords the participants who use the incubators, much control over how they join or position these units, making them useful in a wide range of contexts.
Panel 5: Modular Incubator Units in the Field
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Pictured here are just a few rough visualizations of how the modular incubator units can make their way out into the world. Possible settings may be a gallery, or pieces may be transported for field research or to be part of Community Supported Fishing events.
