Sustainability

This evening I went with a friend to check out Innovators and Ideas (I Squared): Contemporary Craft Series, the topic was Making Do: Exploring the Role of Creative Production in Achieving Sustainability. This was a fairly interesting group of presentations, though not what I had expected it was certainly thought-provoking.

Speakers:

Mason White – Lateral Office
Elísabet Gunnarsdótter – Fogo Island Arts Corporation
Cynthia Hathaway - Designer
Claire Ironside + Angela Iarocci - moimoi design

Moderator:

Professor Michael Longford – York University

A presentation in partnership between Harbourfront Centre, Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, and York University.

For more info, see it here

I particularly liked Angela Iarocci's talk, who spoke on behalf of moimoi design about a interesting project called FishNet: The Great Lakes Craft & Release Project. They had 4th grade Toronto children make species of fish found in the Great Lakes in a plush toy craft. The fish were then "released" to be put on display for an art exhibition, hung where they might like to be in the room as a metaphorical lake (shallow, deep, near the outskirts). Children were photographed with their fish, printed on the walls. Proceeds from the gallery went to conservationist advocates for the Lakes.
For more info, see it here

Sometime toward the end of the panel discussion the idea of sustainability came up. There were certainly differing opinions of it, positive and negative. The word in itself has become somewhat ambiguous in it's usage. It has come to be synonymous with Environmentally friendly, when this is not the case.

One of the presenters, I think it was Elísabet Gunnarsdótter, presented the three pillars of sustainability. So clearly, as depicted, sustainable is more than just the environment. Something about this though, seems to take a lot of the responsibility away from the individual. If, ideally, societies are to hold sustainability as a gold standard, then what of the individual?

As the conversation went on, I could really see how society had transformed the S word into a means to back up a weak rationale behind the development of a project, as it could be misinterpreted as long-lasting. A clock was mentioned, built to sustain, to last forever, deep in a mountain. And Elísabet Gunnarsdótter made a good point again when she spoke about the assumptions we make when things are created to be sustainable, how we assume the needs of future generations are the same as our own. How we need to be careful that things remain purposeful and sustainable on a time axis as well.

The diagram of sustainability lacks adaptability, creativity, critical thinking, it doesn't show the malleability that is sustainable development, a back and forth of knowledge gained and change made, that makes it sustainable.

Because I've mentioned her a few times, Elísabet Gunnarsdótter, you should know that she was speaking as an architect from an Inn development project on Fogo Island (off the shore of Newfoundland, seen above). Though I haven't had a chance to check it out, I am told that there was an interesting CBC radio Sunday Edition (A Rock Turning) about this hotel featuring the funder of the project, Zita Cobb, you should be able to listen to it here.

Sustainability diagram from Wikipedia
Fogo Island picture from Saunders Architecture Website, http://www.saunders.no/