How might we have fun while doing the hard graft of the work that needs doing?
How might we live less violently on the earth?
Less genocide.
Less war, less division, less hate.
Less extraction.
Less violent production of food, products and energy.
Less waste, pollution, litter.
This post explores several strands of where I am learning, working, thinking
- on going exploration of Joanna Macy’s work, the work that reconnects
- behavioural psychology, mindset shifts
- how to think like a 21st century economist
- circular economy literacy and community action plans
- life centred design
- humour, joy and engagement
- creating spaces for what we do want
In August 2023 round where I live someone began interacting with 🛑 STOP signs stenciling phrases like
- ah Lads STOP
- don’t STOP believing
They were so funny and brought me great joy. Giggling in the car as I came to a stop.
The “ah lads” 🛑 stop was my favourite, very colloquial in my mind to Cork, I do love Cork!
I’m sure the RSA nor Wx County Council approved but… it was a brillant short campaign that brought a smile to my face everytime I passed the signs. I’ve no idea who was behind it. But I loved them for it.
This morning on Linkedin someone shared Greg Goya’s work, an Italian artist who uses playfulness and humour to engage the public. His practice seems to be painting on the ground games or reminders of what we may have played as a child – Zebra crossings “the road is lava”, hopscotch in-front of where the train door opens. The videos show adults engaging easily & in very playful ways. Lots of people seem to share his work, they don’t often reference him.
It has me thinking again about rubbish, trash and the behaviour of people throwing litter and polluting the very beautiful wild places they have traveled to. Literally trashing the place. Two projects I am working on, it’s a theme one local and one an EU Intelligent Cities project. The later is also dealing with four wheel drives ripping up the landscape the drivers go to enjoy.
My work this year has evolved from circular economy literacy and into thinking circular, the mindset shift for organisations. Those spaces need inspiration and BDT Consultancy has developed case-studies, lighthouses and exemplars in circular economy.
I’ve also looked at how and where design has been used brilliantly to engage especially with play and humour. I love projects that bring awareness, behavioural change and action without people really being aware of it.
Here are two that I love, let me know your favourites:
the waste reduction ballot bin
Imagine the fun we could have with this in Ireland in the run up to our election?
The ballot bin idea was designed by HubBub a UK creative charity that’s making environmental action make sense, for people, communities, and businesses. Let’s have more of this!
Wonder could FDYS or the Menshed make one of these, for disposable coffee cups at the entrance to the forest in Courtown. That was some mess there around the bin the last Bank holiday.
I’m also a fan of small actions, simple things that get people to think or notice something.
painting on a road
As a designer I don’t just want to replicate these ideas I want to bring the spirit of it into research, social enquiry, co-design, placemaking, policy, systems change and community action. I’m really interested in how businesses can harness people’s imagination and playfulness to bring us into a postgrowth society transformation.
Our work across co-design, behavioural change and mindset, care, new economic thinking, pollution & waste education/reduction, circular economy initiatives and learning, systems thinking, placemaking, bioregions, energy, land stewards & soil health, nourishing food, health, culture & creativity, wellbeing and indicators… how to use a more playful approach. That maybe unburdens the mind, disarms the heart, engages where we laugh.
In Joanna Macy’s the work that Reconnects there is a framing to live on the world more lightly, less violently. This speaks so much to me for the times we are in.
This week in conversation several people have referenced Kate Raworths bumper car analogy. That she spoke to during her time in Dublin.
We have heavy lifting to do. We maybe at the cusp of a systems shift. The darkest hour before the dawn… that may or not be where we are in 2024 but feck it feels like it.
The term ‘crack on’ comes to mind but I might rewrite it as craic on. This again has an urban slang meaning – right, let’s go, the fun is about to start.
It also talks to Douglad Hine, recent post called Moving Down and In. He references Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth at the Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, 2008. Douglad is the author of At Work in the Ruins. I came to his work via my good friend Mella who asked me c. June 2023 did I know the term “building in good ruins”. From there a Nate Hagens podcast with Douglas, I’ve gone to buy the book several times and bought other things instead, it’s been on my list since before it was published! I occasionally dip into his substack.
🐇 Rabit hole warning
There are other threads here in my work & cultural thinking, that are very alive for me so if you want to go down a rabbit hole here are further points of reference:
Douglad introduced me to Bayo Akomolafe. Whose work I’ve shared with a lot of people recently.
Sometime in 2023 I also began following the work of Andrea Machado de Oliveira. Author of Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism.
“Modernity’s colonization of our unconscious means that most people will gravitate toward what is easier, most comfortable, and most familiar, toward what will fulfill their modern desires and temporarily address their sense of depletion. The possibility of emptying ourselves of these desires, of letting both our securities and insecurities go, is only viable when everything else fails, or when we grow bored with our own delusions.” – Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti
Amazingly last week the Work that Reconnects community ran a workshop with Andrea last week that I joined. The house that modernity built is work that I am weaving into some shared Ireland work coming up in February 2025. I’m working on the design of that session in the next few weeks.
This ended up being a much longer post than I’d intended. If some of the links are new to you, let me know where they take you to, what resonates.
If you are new here hi! how’s it going? welcome.
Perhaps no one interacts with blogs or leaves a comments, but you are invited and most welcome to let me know your thoughts.
Roisin Markham 
Leave a comment