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The Immaterialist

resilient living in a limitless world

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October 22, 2020October 22, 2020

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New post at The Immaterialist - on sustainable consumption.

An object’s beauty concerns more than making the object appear useful or appealing; the expressive part of the object can act as the primus motor in establishing an emotional bond between a thing and a recipient.

Alamanda is up!! Visit our profile and follow our sustainable start-up with focus on women's empowerment and endangered crafts. @alamanda_sudaji_bali

Momentary pleasure is per definition short-lived. Cheap, poorly made products lead to a need for more or constant replacement. As French existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir rightfully points out in her Ethics of Ambiguity: consumption contains destruction. The act of consuming constitutes a counterpoint to what de Beauvoir calls stationary plenitude in-itself, which makes me think of terms like resilience, durability, and independence - all of which are related to leading an anti-trendy life. Consumption is in other words in opposition to anti-trend. Hence, anti-trendy living involves consuming nothing but food and beverages.

This amazing tall tree that I met today in the forest reminded me of the incredible book The Overstory - highly recommended! "What you make from a tree should be at least as miraculous as what you cut down."

Some objects can’t immediately be understood or decoded; instead, they challenge our immediate need to conceptualize, generalize, and organize - and the encounter shocks our imagination. Encountering complex objects or objects that consist of unexpected combinations--or that to a lesser or greater extent play havoc with our expectations of the world - we are forced to stay with the present moment to capture and understand what greets us. Our consciousness is pushed to “expand.”

Beautiful indigo coloured handwoven shawl by @sudajiweavers and aesthetically sustainable upcycled shirt by @la_femme_rousse in an article on anti-trend and sustainable living I recently wrote for the Danish trend magazine Tid & Tendenser @pejgruppen. I love it when stunning items like these beautifully accompany my theories 🙏 #theimmaterialist #antitrend #antitrendyliving #sustainableliving #sustainableconsumption #sustainingendangeredcrafts #sustainablefashion #slowdesign #danishdesign #balinesecrafts #handcrafted #upcyclingfashion #upcycle #reducereuse #reducereuserecycle #reduceconsumption #tactility #aestheticnourisment #aestheticsustainability #trend

Extract from Aesthetic Sustainability, from the chapter on aesthetic strategy:

"You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop." I love this magical sentence by the poet Rumi, because it challenges my feeling of being insignificantly small when faced with vast nature: the sea, the night sky, a mountain range. This sentence suggest that the entire possibility of the world resides inside of each one of us, and that we are capable of creating from that space. If we all contain infinite possibilities there is no excuse for not doing what we dream of, or what we know is right.

Inherent in freedom are dangers and responsibilities, argues Erich Fromm in this thought-provoking book. Therefore, many of us seek to escape freedom, and therefore authoritarian societies arise. "Is there not also, perhaps, besides an innate desire for freedom, an instinctive wish for submission? If there is not, how can we account for the attraction which submission to a leader has got for so many today? Is submission always to an overt authority, or is there also submission to internalized authorities, such as duty or conscience, to inner compulsions or to anonymous authorities like public opinion? Is there a hidden satisfaction in submitting, and what is its essence?" #theimmaterialist #freedom #uncultivated #fromm

The beauty and magic of nature lies in many ways in the changes and in decay. The changing light of the sky; thunderclouds that drift in and darken everything, sunsets, and rainbows that for short moments create above-ground coloured streaks, fog that eases, rain that gets denser and heralds the coming of autumn, fruit that when it is most ripe and aromatic is on the verge of rot, the perfumed scent of hyacinths culminating just before they wither, leaves withering and turning to soil and nourishment for other plants, bubbling spring-announcing buds: all a still life and landscape painters’ favourite motifs. Why? Because change holds the possibility of seeing and understanding; contrasts and contradictions are prerequisites for insight – within decay lies the seed for something new. #theimmaterialist #sunset #antitrend #uncultivated #rewilding #changeistheonlyconstant #decay #aestheticnourisment #aestheticexperiences #aestheticdecay #beauty

At the moment I am engaged in women’s empowerment. I am establishing a weavers’ cooperative together with a friend in order to help a group of talented weavers in northern Bali (all women). The goal is that the women can get space and time (and of course a salary) to develop their skills and hence will feel empowered and independent. A subgoal is to sustain endangered crafts-traditions and patterns in Bali. I have been talking a lot to my friend about how we ensure the best conditions for the women: should they be able to bring their children to work? Should we provide lunch or is it better that we cook together in order to create a community feeling? How do we ensure that they can juggle their responsibilities at home and at the same time take care of their work? etc. But, the other day I realised something: many of my female friends from “developed” countries are as much in need of empowerment as the balinese artisans are. They are the primal parent, and they are taking care of the vast majority of household work, whilst trying to nurture a career that can enable them to feel empowered and independent. The realisation made me sad, actually. Because apparently "development" doesn't include gender equality.

In my book Aesthetic Strategy I developed an aesthetic strategy that contains concrete guidelines for working designers that can be used in the creation process of a product, whether tangible or intangible. In addition, the strategy can be used to analyze design objects or concepts.

This is me, exhausted and sunburned after an extremely long scooter excursion to a pink beach (that wasn't really very pink) in Lombok last year. The dress I am wearing was bought for next to nothing in a secondhand market in Bali. I have worn it many times and have no plans of getting rid of it. The market in Bali is one of many secondhand markets that sells discarded clothes from developed countries. The vast majority of the clothes are in perfect condition, but still, they have been perceived as obsolete by their previous owner. There are plural reasons for perceived obsolescence, but the common denominator is shifting trends - the ever-changing societal and cultural consensus on what a cool phone, dress, bag, bicycle, or living room should look like. One could ask why we follow trends - but I suppose, it is related to our need for verification and cultural approval. The fast fashion industry is profiting from this human need. And, not only are they profiting, they are encouraging it by a constant outflow of new products and styles that typically oppose the previous trend so that almost everything in one’s wardrobe or home must be changed in order to have the “correct” look and receive the gazes of approval from one’s fellow trend-followers.Trend-related perceived obsolescence profits from the current status symbols, most of which are related to one’s demonstrated ability to continuously upscale rather than downscale.

"Gå, så går det nok" (which translates to something like: walk, then everything will be okay) said the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. I couldn't agree more. Whenever I feel overwhelmed, stressed out or confused about what to do, a walk is always soul-balm for me. #theimmaterialist #kierkegaard #walk #mallorca

Ultra slow design by mother nature 🙏, #theimmaterialist #stalactites #stalactitecave #slowdesign #slowness #beautiful #nature #naturescathedral#mothernature

Silence. #theimmaterialist #silence #uncultivated

Friday afternoon book recommendations. Just listen to the way this beautiful book begins:

Leaving some kind of “imperfections” in the design-object is a central way of working with sustainable, resilient design. I am putting the word imperfections in quotes, because it doesn’t quite seem to cover this way of designing sustainably, as the notion of leaving imperfections in the design-object is not a plea to create something inadequate or defect. Rather, resilience-increasing imperfections should be little references to the process, the thoughts, and the hands behind the object. They are beautifying due to the stories they tell and the intimacy they form between the creator and the receiver.

Would you want to live in a world without roughness, diversity, and texturesque, ragged, wild beauty?

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