lecture: Studio d-o-t-s: phyto-centered design

Laura Drouet and Olivier Lacrouts from studio d-o-t-s paid us a digital visit per zoom meeting from Milano to tell us about their approach to phyto-centered design and their exhibition Plant Fever. They conceived the exhibition in 2017, topically dividing it into 3 chapters. In the first part, a classically industrial and exploitative way of thinking about plant life is reflected: How do we use plants as resources, and how can humans profit off of them? The second part of the exhibition explores plants as pets, as domestic inhabitants of our interior landscapes. The interaction between humans and plants and their companionship is highlighted in a very sensorial way. Finally, the third and last act of the exhibition proposes a way of looking at plants as allies: It offers speculative scenarios looking at plants from new perspectives, as sentient beings instead of resources or pets, as “co-inhabitants of planet earth”. As Olivier pointed out to us, there is a ”quote by some dude” that goes: “Plants are the designers of the earth”. Next, the duo presented their Manifesto of Phyto-centered Design which resulted from the exhibition thought process – they chose to place it at the very end of the exhibition, to enhance its dramatic power and have visitors leave with clear and concise guidelines to shape their further approach to plant life. Laura and Olivier went into detail on the seven points of the manifesto, explaining their process and reasoning behind every one of them and illustrating their points with examples from the exhibition. First, they talked about how plants are more than just resources, even if we use them as such, how they form relationships and are more complex than what meets the eye. They called on everyone to boycott monoculture, adopt a pluricultural approach to resources and resist capitalistic tendencies to simplify nature into an exploitative system. Furthermore, they urged us to think products in terms of the plants they’re produced from: Thinking small, thinking seasonally, thinking locally and specifically. Laura and Olivier made it a point to “restore the ancient alliance”: Protect the people bonded to plants, their traditions, their technologies, their research and findings. The two called for a stop on the “war on invasives” and for a reevaluation of the relationship with non-native plants, arguing that the notion of invasive-ness is very much cultural and the perception of plants is highly subjective – most “invasive” species were originally purposely imported for their valued qualities! The fifth and sixth points of the manifesto, less is more and leave no trace, are often repeated mantras in the fields of design and natural exploration respectively, but hold true in regards to phyto-centered design as well – the fewer material we use, the better for the plan(e)t, of course, and by embracing decay and using vegetal materials it becomes possible to imagine objects that disappear – a good thing, since many everyday objects do not need to stay with us forever. With the final point then, studio d-o-t-s reminded us to design with plants – to let plants take the lead, to accept & respect their slowness, their willingness to grow or not. Laura and Olivier told us about the other exhibitions they’ve had since and the research they’re doing in the same field as well, how the Plant fever exhibition has now also become a book and there is one called Greenhouse Stories as well, before saying goodbye and leaving us all to rest our spinning heads after a long, full day of interesting talks and topics.