This is an investigation into human’s endless ways of treating, using, valuing and creating relationships with artefacts. We take the position of three stories on temporary, generational and emotional kinship, written from the object’s perspectives. We track them from cradle to cradle and from owner to owner to no owner.

In the first chapter, we follow a straw, that as a single-use item all too well knows the shame that comes with begin made of plastic in a newly climate aware environment. The loss of value after being used and carelessness for the environment. Written as a monologue we hear how the straw momentarily floats around in a garbage patch in the ocean making relationships with other-than-human creatures.

In the second chapter we follow a design chair through its diary notations. The chair witnesses the change in consumption habits as well as the decline in material quality in fellow furniture. It tells nostalgic tales of caretaking and respect for resources from back when ‘time moves slower’ and ‘things were simple’.

The third chapter revolves around a sweater in the making of a young girl. Written as a manuscript we hear dialogues about climate change as the girl takes a stand against old ways of thinking while changing her own taught habits of consumption.

I hope to shed light on how humans through kinship with objects have a caretaking responsibility for their use, maintenance and further journey. I want to debate how knowledge of their making, makeup and maker will bring a broader understanding of our place as an interbeing. A hope that the acknowledgement of kindship will bring a more authentic relationship with our position in biodiversity as an individual.

I use Graham Harman’s philosophical theory from ‘Object Oriented Ontology’ to understand objects as individuals with agency. From Jane Bennett’s ‘Vibrant Matter – a political ecology of thing’ I learned about ‘Thing-power’ and through Heather Davis’ text ‘Toxic Progeny: The Plastisphere and Other Queer Futures’ I understand human kindship with objects. I use Bell Hooks’ way of seeing design as the essence of living and articles from the Danish in-depth newspaper Zetland for information on climate, consumption and economic knowledge.

Throughout the thesis, I write about different objects inspired by ‘How are things! – A philosophical experiment’ by Roger-Pol Droit and ‘Mythologies’ by Roland Barthes, but more in the writing style of the podcast ‘Everything is alive’ by Radiotopia.

The point I’m trying to make is that creativity plays a huge part in coming up with solutions and creating a new way of living in the future. And the ultimate kinship is being a designer because you actively make choices in every aspect of why this item needs to be in the world. There is also the gift of getting to know yourself through the understanding of your part in the intertwined relationships of everything on earth. This awareness cannot help but creates resistance against capitalism.

Research question:
How can a broader understanding of human kinship with objects make us aware of our place as a designer of our surroundings and help to change our consumption lifestyle to benefit the climate?

We all have objects in our lives that we care for. Objects that we find beautiful, that resemble our personality or are practical for us. Things we wouldn’t survive without or items of sheer pleasure.

In our modern-day society, we that live in richer countries, have our material needs covered and much more. We have so much that it becomes a burden for us. We have tv-shows with coaches helping us to simplify our life by getting rid of stuff that clutters our minds. On the one end of the spectrum, we have single-use items, that have fulfilled their designed purpose after their short encounters. Objects we don’t tie any emotional connection to. On the other end is maybe the people who love objects so much they marry them; Like the Eiffel Tower, the Berlin wall, a roller-coaster, sex dolls or their car.

Overconsumption is a huge burden on the climate. In fact, our consumption of things is the biggest single reason for our carbon footprint, if you ask Denmark’s leading green think tank Concito.^[1] Therefore, one of the most effective methods if you want to limit your overall imprint on the globe is to buy fewer good quality things.

I have written three chapters about three different objects. And have been trying to take their perspective of them but not in their naive stage of only knowing things from their own experiences but also with stories related to their existence. I was inspired by this way of seeing the material world from Graham Harman’s coined philosophy ‘Object-Oriented Ontology’ (also called OOO). The philosophy places humans and nonhuman objects on the same level by rejecting the privileging of human existence over the existence of nonhuman objects. Is the nonhuman objects are equal and also existing outside the cognition of the human, they are not defined by the metaphysics of how the human minds linguistics categorizes them or how they are defined in relation to other objects. ^[2]

This got me thinking that most human-made objects are created in the vision of the human. That is, humans designed the object with a purpose, curiosity or meaning in mind. Especially if it’s a mass-produced object, there were hopefully a lot of thoughts in mind before making tens of thousands of them. But still, you encounter objects that make you think “What were they thinking?”. And with my designer view on things and climate anxious mind, I think “What a waste of materials and energy!”. But who am I to say if it was worthwhile making it? It might have sparked joy for someone.

I’m looking into how humans create a relationship with objects. Our kinship with objects. If we were to look at owning an object as adopting kin, then we would like to know its background story. How it’s made and who made it? What are the materials and where it’s from? It’s history and former owners. In the timespan we own it: we use it, repair it, maintain it, dust it off and show it off. How do humans use objects as actants in their aesthetic self-narration? If we had more understanding of the material resources we use and an acknowledgement of the value it gives us, would we then have a more respectful relationship with our environment?

Asking the simple question of why we need it, unlocks our ‘inner designer’. Does it solve a ‘problem’ in our life or does it speak to our emotions? As an inner designer, you reflect inwards and tap into your desires for things. There are reflections to make on every visual and practical aspect of the object. Because every visual cue links back to cultural cues in your frame of reference. That’s what in sales marketing language would be called the ‘target audience’. And this is where the outer designer comes in. If you can narrow down a group of people with similar consumer habits and figure out what the next new thing, they could desire would be, you have yourself a good deal. Or you can even spin up new purposes for things they didn’t know they had. The outer designer places themselves in other people’s shoes. They can create narratives and concepts and things that speak to people. Especially as a Graphic Designer like me.

I feel a personal frustration with how consumer culture exists today. To put it bluntly do I not understand why some people would waste their money on some things. But then again, I have been persuaded by commercials. It’s hard not to feel a little brainwashed by the media. When trying to combat climate change, I feel like putting a stick in the wheel of consumerism. And as I said above, one way to do this is to remove yourself as the centre of this universe and try to see things from the things perspective.

The monologue of a straw

Location:
The Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch
36°21'29.4"N 139°17'45.3"W

I know my power in this world isn’t great. I’m designed as a gimmick. A symbol of fun, leisure and convenience. As a refined way of transferring liquid to a human mouth. To relieve the lazy person from lifting their glass. Humans are constantly looking for ways to innovate their life, making their existence more pleasurable. So, I’m an excess material, a sprinkle on the top, which also makes it possible for them to live without me. Therefore, I'm an easy target in this newly climate-aware society that is trying to clean up its mess and re-evaluate its consumption.

On 7 November 2017, the city of Santa Cruz, California implemented a ban on all non-recyclable to-go containers, straws and lids. ^[3] In the transition period from plastic to paper straws climate change was suddenly a hot topic in the beach smoothie bar I was living in. I overheard one of the customer talk about their new idol, the influencer called Lauren Singer, who lives a zero-waste life and blogs about it. Best known for only having one jar of plastic trash in the last 4 years.^[4] I guess that way of living is possible if your lifestyle is your occupation and are living in a neighbourhood with supermarkets that make it possible to buy plastic-free. For most people, there is no choice. Everything seems to be plastic warped these days.

To live without plastic appears untenable for most people. But the first step is probably to understand your part in this and take steps to make it better. That’s why campaigning against straws is a confined problem that makes it tangible for even a child to understand. But straws make up 0,03% of all plastic in the ocean they estimate.^[5] A much bigger part of this garbage patch I float around in is nets and other gear from the fishing industry (40%).^[6] The average citizen is not directly in contact with that story. It becomes abstract for the individual to imagine the mechanisms in circulation when buying a can of tuna in the supermarket. To be informed of every item in your life, the networks of production they participate in is too vast of a structure to wrap your head around. Specific items have had their shining moment in the public eye. Recently the microfiber kitchen cloths were replaced with crocheted cotton cloths to minimize microplastics. Small steps, but steady wins the race.

The first found invention of a straw were in the Sumerian culture in Mesopotamia in 3000 BCE. They were made of gold with set blue stones and long enough to reach into clay pots to suck up beer-like substance up. Possibly made so you could drink it without getting the lumpy by-product at the bottom. Around the same time in South America people used a ‘bombilla’ to suck mate tea. Possessing the same filtering purpose for the tea leaves. In the 18th century people were using ryegrass straws, cheap and soft but they also dissolved a bit in your drink and left a grassy taste. So, in 1888 American inventor Marvin C. Stone patented the paper straw as we know it today. Only from the 50s and booming in the 60s did plastic straws become common with the rise in plastic use and fast-food chains. ^[7]

Once a human has set their lips on me and has transferred bacteria to me, I am no longer desirable for any other human to use me again and I have become trash. And now look at me. Floating about in the ocean sharing new bacterial cultures that I never thought I was to experience. The human invented me for a short lifespan. But we plastics take 450 year before we degrade naturally. They call us single use and disposable but we will outlive them. ^[8]

Author Jane Bennett brings a philosophy that challenges the traditional definition of matter as being passive or inactive. She believes that everything is alive. This idea came to her an encounter with a pile of trash found on the sidewalk of New York city, A plastic glove, a dead rat, a lean stick, a bottle cap and some pollen.^[9] The vitality she felt in each of them individually and the assemblage they formed together awoke a feeling in her sparked the idea that even animated objects have an agency in this world and a vitality humans often oversee. Like as who children see the animated teddy bears as being alive. The idea of humans as the dominant and active subject in this world is being challenged when being overwhelmed by material things. Material things can be actants too. This is what she calls ‘Thing-power’. The vital materiality can never be dismissed. You can be affected by thing-power’s awareness from any object, even from trash, as Jane Bennett experienced. ^[10]

I do have power, in the way that I have become a symbol of the excess consumption humans have. A symbol of climate change. A symbol of unnecessary design. Seeing a straw being pulled out of the nose of a turtle in the viral video ^[11]that started the whole anti-straw campaign was a wakeup-call of how humans treat the planet. If no one had invented me, humans would have been fine without me. But this is the case for many of human inventions, they are not only a species of logic but also of leisure, often at the cost on someone.

The diary of a chair

16. January 2022

I have many fathers. The one that birthed me first was Designer Børge Mogensen. I was his idea child, designed with the common young middle-class family in mind. He worked against the fashion in furniture at the time that was big and heavy, as he called them “pumped up hams”.^[12] He had a vision to make furniture that was flexible and light adjusted to the human, instead of the other way around. Human first and the furniture thereafter. He had high standards of craftsmanship, practicality and sense of understated elegance.

My other fathers also birthed me in some way. The carpenters working at the FDB-furniture factory in Tarm, Denmark in 1953.^[13] They constructed me. Each person had his own workstation with responsibility for one part. A communal effort with attention to detail. I’m made from oak with seat in paper yarn, what took years of training to learn to weave tight enough to last. A simple construction that is fixable when broken. And I have been fixed many times.

17. January 2022

Though I never came to be for the lower middle class in the way Børge Mogensen envisioned, I was immediately a hit and was acknowledged as an icon from the beginning. Therefore, the prices were not fitting his idea of the furniture to be for the middle class even lower-middle class. I became a symbol of the new era for design. And in some way the starting point for the IKEA foundation and manifesto.

The founder of IKEA, Ingvar Kamprad, had big visions for his business. It was a two-faced coin. On the one side he wanted to create opportunity to have the same living standards by going against the same old ‘heavy’ aesthetics as Børge Mogensen. Kamprad wrote in is manifesto in 1976 ”We know, that we in the future will provide to a valuable contribution to democracy. And this is why it is our duty to expand [our business]” ^[14] The word expand is important, because Kamprad mixed up the vision of spreading aesthetic equality with more capitalistic notion of growing his business. Profit being the other side of the coin. ^[15]

Class separations were not only made in by owning material values but also in aesthetics. ^[16] The heavy furniture you inherited in generations started to become a symbol of lower-class people because they couldn't afford the new styles. Senior researcher in design history at Royal College of Art in London Viviana Narotzky, have researched whether IKEA have contributed to a classless society. In the book ’Great IKEA’ by Elen Lewis, she describes how the democratic furniture can be seen as a direct extension of Swedish social-democracy. Just because you are not rich, you no longer have to live with old furniture. That mark of class has disappeared and you can to a greater extent free yourself from your social heritage. ^[17] Today there it not only about equal opportunities but a common understanding about what is ‘nice’ furniture. Kamprad writes in his manifesto “A part of creating a better everyday life for the many people consists of ridding yourself of status and old conventions – It’s about become free as humans.” ^[18]

It is more the rule than the exception to find IKEA items in Danish homes nowadays and their catalogue is published in a larger edition than the Bible. We cannot contribute all the credit for the change in style and accessibility of modern furniture to IKEA. It was a growing trend up thought the 50’s and 60’s and more a sign of the post war growing economy, increasing efficiency in factory production and rise of new materials, like plastic.

18. January 2022

On the Australian savanna the bowerbird lives. Its forte in life is to craft the perfect gate out of sticks. It takes it 6 years for a male bowerbird to learn this technique only from watching its male competitors at work. It starts constructing the gate with a hole in the middle big enough for a bower bird to walk through and surrounds it by colourful barriers, flowers or even plastic pieces. The whole point of this installation is to attract a female bowerbird. She is extremely picky and the male bird has to do the right dance, sing the right tune and have fixed his feathers up nicely for her to even approach him. When the female bower is satisfied with his work she will walk through the gate and the two can mate. And his purpose in life is fulfilled. ^[19]

Humans are much more complicated beings. We create and gather tings for many purposes. But the one thing we do need to survive is some kind of interaction and belonging to a group. And the way we express our belonging and understanding of culture is through visual things. But a lot of the choices for why humans create their own “gates” is, like the bowerbird, learned through observing the culture around them. The home is an assemblage of objects that resonate with them. They create an image of how they stand within the pack and dress, move, talk and accumulate objects according to their own self view. It’s a way of branding themselves in order to fit it.

Designer and educator Victor Papanek explains in his book ‘Design for the Real World’ "design also means tidying and reorganizing a desk drawer, pulling out a diseased tooth, baking an apple pie, choosing sides for a back-lot baseball game, and raising a child." ^[20] It is in the “basic to all human activity”. ^[21] Humans are inventing, planning, improving and organizing ourselves. They construct “gates”, the outer appearance, from things often ready-made. The consumerist lifestyle that thrives within the capitalist society feeds on selling you things for constructing your personality. We live in a designed world. Everything has been thought up by a designer. All the pieces are there for you to play with to assemble your narrative. You are an inner-designer curating the world around you.

19. January 2022

When you walk through an IKEA you see one perfect home after the other. No dirty dishes in the sink or clothes on the floor. As the protagonist from the film Fight Club says "What kind of dining set defines me as a person?”. You browse personalities. On the wall hangs a framed poser of New York city skyline that they have been selling for the last decades and selling all around the world. A home in Sweden now can look exactly like a home in Mexico or Australia. A globalized common understanding of what nice furniture is. ^[22] It has somehow neutralized the existing culture, but at what cost?

It is almost too easy. You walk into an IKEA just to buy cups and come out with a whole crate full of things you didn’t know you needed. The environment is designed to make you buy more and want more. If we follow the norm and does what is expected of us it relives the mind from having to be creative and come up with awareness of our own. ”Conformism is really the opposite of creativity. You’re doing what’s been done before.” ^[23]

People impulsively buy so many things that it clutters their homes and minds. Many cleaning-up tv-programs have gained popularity in the last years, like Maria Kondo’s philosophy of only keeping what “sparks joy”. This is partly a response to climate aware consumption. One of the first steps you can take to reduce your carbon footprint is to buy less and buy things of good quality so they last longer. ^[24] But that also entails confronting the things you already own and question whether it has an emotional or practical purpose in your lives. These minimalistic theories encourage you to live with more authenticity and intention like Afrominimalist Christine Platt preaches. ^[25] “Our spending habits like many of our habits are reflections of how we were raised. What we saw our caregivers prioritize.” Platt says. ^[26] Your inner designer gets activated when confronting these habits.

20. January 2022

Questioning one’s relationships with items that are in your possession is an active form of kinship. Intentional engagement and understanding of your place in the network of things will broaden your understanding of how you play a part in climate change.

I have lived in many homes with IKEA furniture. But they never last long. People don’t treat the item with the same respect they would do with things they paid a lot of money for or that have a history or sentimental value. We share the same ground in some of our founding ideas. We were envisioned by designers to relive the class structure of aesthetic categorization and practicality. But it doesn’t matter whether we are made of gold or plastic, the value is created by the viewer. They can love their Poäng chair as much as a Børge Mogensen chair. It’s about the eyes seeing. It is the inner designer’s vision. I might last longer, and therefore I’ll be better for the climate. But it would be elitist for me to say that one is better than the other. Everything in moderation.

A scene in a sweater’s life

EXT. COPENHAGEN – COLD AUTUMN

FADE IN
Establishing shot
Zoom in on the window

SWEATER
(narrator voiceover)

Meet my creator Emily. She is 17 years old and obsessed with her new hobby being a part of Extinction Rebellion. After going on school strikes with her friends inspired by Greta Thunberg, she has been trying to change her lifestyle to become as climate neutral as possible. Not easy when you have parents that are meat lovers and shopaholics.

INT. GRANDMAS KICHEN

Grandma places tea and biscuits on the table
EMILY unpacks her half-knitted sweater
Emphasis on the sweater being laid in the table

GRANDMA (76)

Fantastic outfit you got on!

EMILY (17)

Thanks, I bought the shirt second hand the other day.

GRANDMA

It looks very new!

EMILY

Yea, but I was quite disappointed when I found out it was imported from America.

GRANDMA

Why? Don’t you think someone just bought it themselves and then donated it.

EMILY

No, it’s a thing they do. They import used cloth from US because they can get more for it in Europe. Not climate friendly at all.

GRANDMA

We have plenty second hand cloth here already. They should send it to countries that need it more.

EMILY

Denmark are one of the countries that donate the most cloth, but we are also one of the one that buys the most. ^[27] And most of our cloth end up in African land fields anyway. We are basically shipping our trash to Africa.

GRANDMA

You are right, but they are just trying to help. My friend Gertrud works at the Red Cross as a volunteer. So, most of what they earn goes to charity. But mostly it’s to activate the elders. Make them feel needed.

EMILY

Sure. So many people are also trying to help the civils in the Ukrainian war, by driving there to pick them up or gathering cloth and bedsheets to bring them. But the thing that helps the most is just sending money. For Red Cross to bring the more efficient help they need to buy locally and pack the trucks with millimetre precision. ^[28] It’s the same with the climate crisis it’s hard for me to do much more than cut down my emission, but the most affected countries mostly need money to become use more climate energy resources or handle the droughts, storm and flood. They don’t need me to send cloth, but rather that we redistribute my privileges.

GRANDMA

It’s just a bit to abstract for people to donate money. It seems much more tangible to have done something with your own hands. These kinds of events really bring people together and engage the communities. It might not be the armature philanthropist that knows best but at least they take action and organize themselves.
[pause]

GRANDMA

Speaking of which. You brought your sweater.

EMILY

Yes, I have knitted from the neck to the armpits and now I’m stuck.

GRANDMA

I see. You need new four sock knitting pins for the sleeves and then you continue knitting with a big loop pin for the torso. Let me get them for you.

Grandma gets up
EMILY sips the tea and looks at her phone

EMILY

This is what I talked about.

EMILY reads out loud from Instagram post

EMILY

“You cannot not be depressed if you look around at the problems of the world. That’s why, you know the massage is: Don’t think globally, act locally. Act locally first, see that you can make a difference. And when you see that you make a difference you want to do more. Taking that first step gives you hope that your actions do make a difference. And then you want to do more and as you do more. It’s like a feedback loop and you inspire others to join you“ Quote Dr. Jane Goodall, British primatologist and anthropologist. Known for her study of chimpanzees, conservation and animal welfare.

GRANDMA

That’s exactly what you do with you experiment of not buying new cloth.

EMILY

It’s not an experiment. I don’t want to buy anything new because it basically impossible to buy anything mass produced sustainably in the world we live in today. ^[29]

Grandma picks up the sweater and start to insert the new pins.

EMILY

I will sew or knit all my own cloth myself from now on. Or buy second hand. Just like you did when you were young. Recycle and repurpose.

GRANDMA

But we did it out of scarcity. After WW2 there was not a lot fabric or cloth on the market. So, we had to be inventive with what we got. And my mom had always been sewing cloths for us. Remaking her old coat into to kids coats.
[pause]
Here you go this should do the trick for the sleeve. You connect them underneath here.

Grandma hands over the kitting and guides the pins to show and EMILY starts making loops.

SWEATER

One in, one out, One in, one out, One in, one out, One in, one out…

EMILY

We will have to be the same. In the future. It’s a question of time before they put regulations on the fashion industry. The Corona crisis have anyway boosted buying second-hand and DIY. All my friends are all knitting like me.

Grandma picks up har own sock knitting projects

GRANDMA

It is so nice to see. I though these kinds of crafts would be lost. You are really breathing fresh air into it with all those colours.

SWEATER

One in, one out, One in, one out, One in, one out, One in, one out…

GRANDMA

For instance all the handmade quilts me and my mother sew are now valuable again. They are being recognized as something beautiful again. I don’t think this is just another trend, because I can sense the same sparce mentality growing in your generation. But now there are cheaply made reproductions of quilts, not even as patches sown together but as a print of patches on a blanket. “The heart of the matter was not really aesthetic value but material status” ^[30]
[pause]
“It is clear that corporate-run economics ensures that most individuals will accept the notion that status derived from conspicuous consumption is more important for individual happiness than aesthetics.” ^[31]

EMILY

Making things myself makes me calm. I’m getting so good; I can knit anywhere now. It makes my thoughts go away and I focus only on the movement of the pins.

SWEATER

One in, one out, One in, one out, One in, one out, One in, one out…

EMILY

But it feels bigger than this. If you choose to not make yourself a part of the trend race and make your own it really makes you appreciate the amount of time and labour put into making your garment. And this sweater is going to have so much more meaning to me than any store-bought item. It carries the thought I was going through while making it and the aesthetic choices fitting my identity.

SWEATER
[narration]

Then taking action into your own hands and learning the crafts you get a bigger application for human innovation. Sitting here and learning from older generations and passing on knowledge is a symbol of how humans have been innovative for years. Emily will find new ways of making this time-consuming exercise into something meaningful for her generation. Reviving the skill that was thought to get lost. But getting your hands in motion and understanding the basics of creating something useful strengthens our appreciation of the everyday object we encounter. This is where the inner and outer designer meet in one.

“When life is happening, design has meaning, and every design we encounter strengthens our recognition of the value of being alive, of being able to experience joy and peace.” - Bell Hooks ^[32]

The history of how we consume is both beautiful and terrifying. It brought with it prosperous time, heightened the living standard but also brought about climate change.

The climate crisis is a hyperobejct ^[33] out of scale for the human brain to comprehend. But we all play a part in it. And privileged countries in the global north have the biggest responsibility for the pollution that has happened the last 60 years and therefor the responsibility for cleaning up the mess. Big corporations and governments are the one with the power to make the big changes. For the common person the power lays in voting the right people in and taking a good hard look at your own consumption and the way you are treating things around you.

If we start seeing the material goods we own, for not only the marked value, symbolic value or emotional value but also for the efforts that where but into making it. The earthly resources mined, the many hands it has gone through and the machines in place to circulate all of these materials around. But if you were to make these things yourself you would have a much greater respect and care for the items. Dedicating our own time and molding with our own hands would open up a whole new respect and understanding for how things are made.

We have seen through these stories of the straw, the chair and this sweater that it is not just for practical purposes like helping us drink, to sit upright and to keep our body warm. That would be too easy to say that’s is all they do. Aesthetics and culture play a huge part in why things are relevant for us. By engaging actively in the understanding of why we have the relationships to a given object, why we formed that kinship connection, we already activate our inner designer. Asking questions like: What problems does it solve for me? Why is it necessary or not to decorate it? Why the color? What cultural perception does the color or pattern or symbols represents for me? What symbolic value does it have to the culture I live in? We all make subconscious or conscious decisions on our choice of material possessions. We want to express ourself.

With the minimalist philosophy we actively confront objects and ask ourselves what purpose it has for us. What we find in the object mirrors back strengthens the understanding of ourselves. The accumulation uncovers our material ‘kinship network’. It also tells a tale of thousands of years of human invention, innovation and cultural development. The minimalist preachers often make the connection between working and buying stuff as an evil circle of consumption. It is ironic that the minimalist theory is a way to find purpose in life with a focus that is still on the material things. It acknowledges this connection between humans and the intertwined relationships with objects. We have always been making things, inventing new solutions, fusing different ideas to create new ones and trying to relive our life from the rigorous tasks that are needed for our survival. “We are all designers,” says design theorist Tony Fry. ^[34]

The difference in an inner and outer designer lay in the in the scope. The inner designer designs for the near world around them, they benefit from the systems already in place and navigate within them. The outer designers are putting themself in other people’s shoes. It takes a great amount of empathy to see things from other people perspective. Being educated in critical thinking, design history and concept development enhances your skill to see humanity’s many peculiar cultures as an outside. Seeing humanity from fly on the wall, as alien just landed or a teacup on a coffee table. We are odd creatures with funny habits.

For me being a designer is:
- coming up with new ideas
- see where one idea can be used in another context
- bridging different fields of work that wouldn’t otherwise meet
- researching in depth to understand
- coming up with methods of working through any issue without known results
- networking people to make ideas meet
- visualizing to explain complexity
- create clarity
These are qualifications I see designers have talent fore. And this is the face of innovation.

When you are conforming to what is expected of you, you’re to be less creative. So, confronting your wants and needs sparks creativity in the brain and lets you see alternative future realities.

The method of placing yourself as an outsider makes you question every aspect of existence. I see the climate crisis as a lifestyle crisis. Consumption habits no longer sustainable to hold up. We are so intertwined in habits and systems that seem to stuck to move. In order to rid ourself of the mess we have made, we need to wake up and maybe see things from the thing’s perspective. These systems are designed and can be redesigned.

- Aagaard, Thomas. “Behold Din Hullede Hættetrøje. Ghana Er Ved at Drukne i Vores Ubrugelige Genbrugstøj.” Zetland, 2022. https://www.zetland.dk/historie/segJ7RkP-mO9kYPgY-9f418.
- Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. France: Les Lettres nouvelles, 1972.
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- Chillag, Ian. Episode. Everything Is Alive 1, no. 1, 2081. https://www.everythingisalive.com/about.
- Chrintz, Torben. Rep. Forbrugerens Klimapåvirkning . CONCITO, 2010. https://concito.dk/sites/concito.dk/files/dokumenter/artikler/rapport-_forbrugerens_klimapaavirkning_udgivelser_21_3706498019.pdf.
- Clifford, Catherine. “The Secret of IKEA's Success.” The Economist, 2011. https://www.economist.com/business/2011/02/24/the-secret-of-ikeas-success.
- Costanza-Chock, Sasha. Design Justice. Boston: Mit Press Ltd, 2020.
- Cruz, Santa. “Changes to City of Santa Cruz Environmentally Acceptable Food Packaging and Products Ordinance Effective Nov. 7.” City of Santa Cruz, 2017. https://www.cityofsantacruz.com/Home/Components/News/News/5669/36.
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ABSTRACT

FOREWORD

I’M NOT THE BAD GUY1

THEY DON’T MAKE THEM LIKE ME ANYMORE 2

WE ARE INTERTWINED 3

AFTERWORD

BIBLIOGRAFY