WILD _ _ NESS / WEIRD _ NESS

This past August DesignInquiry traveled to Bamfield, BC to study the topic WILD _ _ NESS / WEIRD _ NESS. Amidst discussions of climate change, the anthropocene, queering of spaces, and questioning what is a wild space, the outcome of this Inquiry for Rod and I is a commitment to notice and appreciate wildness, wilderness, and weirdness, and let that focus be a lens for our work over the next year.

To notice and experience wilderness, wildness, weirdness is to take a step away from mass assimilation; to view civilization as just a process. It is to practice diversity, to appreciate difference, and to be comfortably uncomfortable amidst variant, shifting perspectives. To recognize wildness and wilderness is to acknowledge what we don’t understand or know, that perception changes depending on who is looking, and that variables can present themselves at unpredictable moments. Whether witnessing weirdness, or practising it, weirdness is a celebration of the strange, with the hopes of noticing the beauty in it.

The commitment of this year is to pursue weirdness, wildness, and wilderness. It is to inhabit the edge effect. Peace without necessarily finding consensus. A collision of boundaries.