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I’m looking forward to visiting the University of Washington Landscape Architecture Department on May 17th. I will share my latest collaborative work with the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest and the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes, and my thoughts (and lots of opinions!) on the role creativity can play in building interdisciplinary community. Lecture starts at 12:15pm on Friday, May 17th at Gould Hall, room 110.
Many thanks to Professor Catherine De Almeida for the invitation.
I am honored to return to the Harvard Forest for a remote talk on Wednesday, April 17th to discuss recent collaborative sci-comm ork with the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest and the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes.
Pencils Re-up for New LAF Fellowship. I am thrilled to further develop recent collaborative work at the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes and pivot my design-research practice firmly back into the landscape architecture field with a Landscape Architecture Foundation Fellowship in Innovation and Leadership. Heartfelt gratitude goes out to all the folks in the environmental design, ecological research, and interdisciplinary arts worlds that have contributed, supported, and championed the collaborative creative adventure over the last decade.
David Buckley Borden’s LAF Fellowship Research Proposal Abstract
Emergent Mutualism: Closing the Science-Communication Gap through Collaboration between Ecology and Design
David Buckley Borden’s LAF Fellowship program will identify, develop, and articulate creative environmental-communication methods, models, and frameworks to answer the question, “How can interdisciplinary science-communication be re-imagined as a collaborative design process between landscape architects and ecologists?” The landscape architect’s role as an environmental communicator and educator is certainly nothing new. However, how the profession engages the scientific research community and then collaboratively educates the general public is worthy of inquiry, critical review, and the dissemination of evidence-based practice case studies. David’s fellowship builds off his ongoing interdisciplinary collaborations with scientists at long-term ecological research sites, including the Harvard Forest in central Massachusetts and the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest in Oregon’s Western Cascades.
You can read Borden’s LAF proposal on the project webpage, and follow project development on Instagram.
Image Description: The headline “Landscape Architecture Foundation Fellowship” appears in bold forest-green type along the top of square image. David Buckley Borden’s LAF-branded logging-truck model is centered on an abstract landscape composition. The careworn truck appears to push the limits of its load capacity with a grip of yellow Ticonderoga pencils. The rundown truck appears to have traveled across an expansive landscape with hazy pink hills in the distance, and crisp double yellow lines along a nameless road in the foreground. David’ supporting institutional collaborators are listed in crisp green type along the bottom of image.
New Project of the Boards: Ecotoxic Patrol by Autonomous Blast Boat (EPA-B Boat) is a six-step science-communication to direct-action project by David Buckley Borden and collaborators that is designed to empower local citizens in the environmental stewardship of community waterways. The performance-based work is intended to inform, involve, and enable citizen communities to interact and influence authorities in local environmental protection. Follow the EPA-B patrol on the project webpage, or on Instagram.
Harvard Appointment. Much gratitude to Clarisse Hart, Director of Outreach & Education at the Harvard Forest, for sponsoring my Associate reappointment and continuing to champion my practice at the “Wired Woods” and its allied LTER research forests. The courtesy appointment will help support a new emerging east-meets-west design-research project with the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest in Blue River, Oregon, and the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts.
Hard to believe my Harvard Forest collaboration will hit its ten-year mark by the end of the new appointment. Call the crib, same numbers, same woods, borden@fas.harvard.edu
New EWS Artist Print Available. The 18 x 24 inch EWS BWR silkscreen print features 48 decoded logographic designs. Building off the traditional graphic language of the “hobo” travel symbols, the reimagined folk communication system serves as a survival code for travelers on the road to environmental collapse. The EWS Artist Print features a custom 3/4” milled oak “frame” that threads into the marine-grade red canvas, which is hand sewn to the silkscreen print with red cotton thread.
Collaboration between David Buckley Borden, Nancy Silvers, and James Weinberg. Hand-printed by James on French Pure White 125lb paper. EWS Artist Print is signed and numbered, edition of 5.
Available for purchase at https://www.davidbuckleyborden.com/mercantile
Icebergs, glacial ice, sea ice, sheet ice, pack ice, shelf ice, pancake ice, grease ice, stagnant ice, fast ice, land-fast ice (AKA shore-fast ice), frazile ice, ice floes, nilus ice, ice melts, and the ice-cold stone-sober look of disbelief as the seas rise 66 meters in a world with no ice.
To commemorate significant events, we mark experiences with annual holidays, honored symbols, cultural objects, and supporting narratives, in the hopes that the commemoration makes it easier to remember (and learn from) important historic events. Commemoration elevates ecological events from an otherwise ordinary historical sequence, it also has the power to index environmental values. Chronicling ecological loss through commemorative objects allows us to acknowledge our ecological legacies and critically reflect on our collective and individual environmental impact.
The emerging Commemorative Ice Picks project, code-named “Warm Soda,” honors global ice loss, across physical and temporal scales, ranging from the microscopic ice crystals of Santa’s frozen tears in the North Pole, to the anticipated continental melt down of the 5,400,000 square mile Antarctic ice sheet down South.
Collaboration with Jack K. Byers, and Isaac Martinotti.
One can follow the development of the project here.
I am grateful to report that I have been awarded another round of creative-research funding from the LTER program at the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest in support of my collaborative work as a designer-in-residence at the Andrews. I am also honored to receive another two-year courtesy appointment within the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society at Oregon State University’s College of Forestry. Many thanks to Matt Betts for sponsoring my efforts at both the Andrews and the College of Forestry. The additional support will serve the final phase of collaborative initiatives between the Andrews and the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes at the University of Oregon. Endless thanks to all the folks, at both OSU and UO, that have enabled this wild, yet exceptionally productive, opportunity at the intersection of ecology, art, and design. Happy New Year.
This new EWS Decoder Bandana supports the “Environmental Wayfinding System” project, a speculative folk communication system that serves as a graphic survival-code for people navigating environmental collapse. All proceeds from the sale of these bandanas will be invested in the professional development of landscape architecture students at the University of Oregon and their collaborative experience at the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscape and the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest.
Two-color silkscreen-print on high-quality 20" square bandana. Limited-edition of 50 per colorway, light blue or white, bandana. Collaboration between Jenny Ginn and David Buckley Borden.
Available for purchase here.
Support Environmental Education! This fundraising bandana supports “Secret Seeds,” an environmental communication project exploring cultural reliancy through the lens of natural defense systems. All proceeds from this declassified green-op will be invested in the professional development of landscape architecture students at the University of Oregon and their collaborative experience with David Buckley Borden at the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscape and the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest.
Two-color silkscreen-print on high-quality 20" square bandana. Limited-edition of 50 per colorway, yellow or white, made-in-the USA bandana. Collaboration between Vinnie Arnone and David Buckley Borden.
Fundraiser bandanas are available for purchase here.
Forest Fashion; Visual Culture and Production of Space
Co-presenters: David Buckley Borden and Liska Chan
Forest Fashion; Visual Culture and Production of Space explores the practical intersection of ecology, art, and design through the lens of a maker-based environmental-communication project developed at the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes at the University of Oregon. This co-authored talk by David Buckley Borden (Fuller Design Fellow) and Liska Chan (Director, Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes) explores “Forest Fashion,” a speculative landscape-futures collaboration inspired by the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest. This critical creative work explores the unfolding Anthropocene at the confluence of culture and ecology within the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Through a narrative accompanied by images of clothing, bags, water bottles, map cases, and camp furniture made by members of the collaborative, we interrogate the interdisciplinary approach to environmental communication at the junction of creativity, education, and landscape-ready fashion. The lecture demonstrates how ethos, shaped by the visual culture of fashion, impacts the production of space in a precarious age. Information for booking public lectures can be found here.
This year will be my last as a Fuller Design Fellow at the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes and will include documenting, packaging, and promoting the body of collaborative work with the HJ Andrews Experimental Research Forest and the Landscape Architecture Department at the University of Oregon. The first public talk about this interdisciplinary work will take place on November 9th, 3pm at the College of Forestry’s Peavy Hall at Oregon State University.
And yes, I am actively looking for other speaking and exhibition opportunities for this body of maker-based design-research work, either in academia or beyond. So, please reach out, if interested.
Abstract for new talk:
David Buckley Borden’s Forest Field Report talk focuses on his latest environmental-design collaborations with the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest and the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes. In this talk Borden shares his research-driven creative process and fluid collaborative approach to environmental-communication at the intersection of landscape, creativity, and cultural event. The image-rich presentation includes a series of new project case studies including the PNW Tree ID project, Forest Fashion, the Arboreal Goth Collection, and the Unfinished Book Bureau. Through these examples, Borden advocates for new models of interdisciplinary environmental education by focusing on solutions to the practical convergence of community, ecology, and design.
https://www.davidbuckleyborden.com/public-speaking-and-workshops
Always a treat to work with Matthew Battles; appreciate the pages, creative writing opportunity, and the ongoing support. The collaborative Forest Fashion project is profiled as a visual essay in this fall’s Arnoldia. In Vol 80, No.3, pages 48 to 55, one will find some speculative-landscapes writing and top collabs with the “The Make Candy Crew'“ at the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes. Couldn’t do without this FIPL Crew; Rachel Benbrook, Asa DeWitt, Ashley Ferguson, Helen Popinchalk, Madisand Sanders, Blake Schouten, Nancy Silvers, Ian Escher Vierck, and Sabine Winkler…and of course Liska Chan, FIPL Director.
I am pleased to offer a new public talk about recent work in the Pacific Northwest. Please reach out to dborden4@oregon.edu, if interested in hosting the following presentation. Otherwise, you’ll be able to catch the presentation at OSU on Nov 9th, and at Harvard in April.
Field Reports from the Pacific Northwest WUI. David Buckley Borden’s Field Reports talk focuses on his latest environmental-communication collaborations with the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest and the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes. In this talk Borden shares his research-driven creative process and fluid collaborative approach to environmental communication at the intersection of landscape, creativity, and cultural event. The image-rich performance includes a series of accessible case studies including the PNW Tree ID project, Forest Fashion (Lookout Edition), and the Unfinished Book Bureau. Through these examples, Borden advocates for new models of interdisciplinary environmental education by focusing on solutions to the practical convergence of ecology, art, and design.
Typical length: 1 hour, including 15 minutes for discussion.
The EWS BWR print features 42 decoded logographic designs. Building off the traditional graphic language of the “hobo” travel symbols, this communication system serves as a survival code for the ongoing environmental collapse. Some pictographs communicate opportunities for potable water, free charging stations, camp slipper repair, and welcoming “safe” communities. Conversely, others warn of environmental threats and misfortunes including wildfires, flooded trails, RR chemical crashes, and monoculture landscapes.
Limited edition of 50, 8” X 24″ two-color silkscreen print on French Pure White 125lb paper. Signed and numbered. Silkscreen printing by James Weinberg of Weinberg Design in Somerville, MA.
Available for online purchase here.
Support Environmental Education! This fundraising bandana supports the “Arboreal Goth Collection,” an ecology-communication project exploring the PNW landscapes through the lens of a fictitious botanical pine cone collection. All proceeds from sales will be used to pay landscape architecture students to contribute to this multidisciplinary collaboration with the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscape, and the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest.
Two-color silkscreen-print on high-quality 20" square bandana. Limited-edition of 50 per colorway. Graphic design collaboration between Vinnie Arnone, David Buckley Borden, and Blake Schouten.
Available for pre-order now. Bandanas scheduled to ship week of September 15th, 2023.
Order bandana here.
Forty-pages, 5.5 X 8.5 inch format, color copier printing, DIY design zine featuring creative writing and speculative design objects by David Buckley Borden and collaborators. The interdisciplinary Forest Fashion project debuted at Lawrence Hall at the College of Design, University of Oregon in the Spring of 2023. Publication includes speculative design writing, project backstory, EWS primer, and twenty featured works of design-fiction exploring backcountry fashion in the Anthropocene. Within the etched-canvas waterproof cover, one will find a variety of blows-ins including color centerfold, project postcards, and other creative treats by the collaborative team of designers, artists, and scientists.
Limited-edition of 44 hard copies. Twelve copies available for sale. Purchase a copy here.
Twenty-page, black and white, 5.5 X 8.5 inch format, DIY artist “exhibition guide” of PNW Tree ID Sign project exhibition at the University of Oregon’s College of Design in winter 2023. Content includes project backstory, creative process, eight featured works, and PSA regarding black-clad Arboreal Goth gangs. Hand silkscreened water-proof cover by Vinnie Arnone and Helen Popinchalk. Unique hand-sewn covers by Nancy Silvers. Limited-edition of 12. Six copies available online at: https://www.davidbuckleyborden.com/mercantile/pnw-tree-id-signs-artist-exhibition-guide
Twenty- page DIY artist exhibition catalog of Ghost Forests show at Simons University in fall 2022. Silkscreened cover, three “blow ins” including, but not limited to exhibition postcards, lightning stool directions, EWS guide, etc. Collaboration with Helen Popinchalk, Nancy Silvers, and Ian Escher Vierck. Limited edition of 44, with 10 available for online purchase here.