Capturing Nature
Project details
- Year
- 2021
- Programme
- graphic-design
- Practices
- social-practice
- Minor
- New Earth
The main question I wanted to drive on in this project was: In what way can the human-nature interaction be brought to light, with a view to the definitions that are attached to it? In my research, I investigated human perceptions of the definitions and meanings of the term ‘nature’ and the ways we, humans, make connections with ‘nature’.
The literature research showed me that there is a lot going on behind the term ‘nature’ and that there are many thinkers and philosopher that have their own thoughts on it. Through my project of designing the book, I implemented many of the results from my research study with the participants. In this study, I asked participants about their definitions of ‘nature’, how they ‘connect’ with nature and whether they see themselves as a part of nature. The link between research and project became essential this way. The perception of nature and the human-environment interaction in the Netherlands as a western culture is the area that investigated in my research, as my participants were all living in the Netherlands.
All the visual representations of nature are based on the descriptions that I collected from my participants. I made a large mapping of the lingual descriptions as well, to create a rough overview of these blurry lines between nature being described as as something human or non-human. I wanted to incorporate this mapping into my book, to give more insight in the origins in the visual descriptions and to show the close connection with the research.
The use of framing different images from bigger ones, also derived from my research about the influence of language on the ways we view things. All of our knowledge makes use of frames. The approach of taking parts of images out of their context was fitting with the idea of ‘rethinking nature’ and looking differently at something. By showing what context and framing can do to our own associations and letting people think about this subject in a new way, I wanted to bring this human-nature relationship to attention.
