Helves and Hallmarks of Collaboration Reception at UO

Join us for an evening of community-making and refreshments in UO’s Lawrence Hall lobby exhibition space on Wednesday, February 5th from 4 to 6pm. This public event is the closing reception for the “Helves and Hallmarks of Collaboration” exhibition, which celebrates interdisciplinary collaboration at the intersection of design, art, and ecology.

The project highlights the specific characteristics, background, and contribution of individuals to a three-year collective effort focused on environmental science-communication. Each sign of the Helves and Hallmarks of Collaboration series strives to evoke the individual spirit of a singular person who was essential to David Buckley Borden’s interdisciplinary work as a Fuller Design Fellow with the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes and the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest from spring 2021 to fall 2024. This project is the last chapter in David’s Fuller Design Fellowship at the University of Oregon. In many ways the exhibition of the work serves as a public display of gratitude and appreciation by David and company.

Food and Drink provided by the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes, Landscape Architecture Department University of Oregon.

Advanced laser tutorial by Ashley Ferguson funded by the Center for the Future of Forests and Society, College of Forestry, Oregon State University.

Public Talk at Bloedel Reserve

As part of my Creative Residency at Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island this January, I will be delivering a public talk on my collaborative work with Long Term Ecological Research Network scientists. The talk will include new research from my ongoing LAF Fellowship program, which identifies, develops, and articulates creative environmental-communication methods 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 event will take place at the Japanese Tea House on Saturday, January 18, 11AM to noon. Additional details and registration info can be found here.

New Year, Appointment at the Center for the Future of Forests and Society

I landed a dream job. I am now the inaugural “Senior Advisor of Creative Practice and Innovation “ at Center for the Future of Forests and Society within the College of Forestry at Oregon State University. The three-year appointment is to help advise, assemble, and mentor interdisciplinary teams (scientists, humanists, external partners, and creatives (artists, writers, designers, landscape architects, etc.), whomever it takes, as part of the Center’s research program. Many thanks to Dean Tom Deluca and Director Michael Paul Nelson for the outstanding collaborative opportunity.

Learn more about the Center for Future Forests and Society and their million-dollar interdisciplinary-science grants program program here.

New "Ferrel Fellowship" Pub

The Ferrel Fellowship catalog features 144 color pages of collaborative work from David Buckley Borden’s Fuller Design Fellowship at the University of Oregon from fall 2021 to summer 2024. The 7x10” image-rich softcover book contains a dozen interdisciplinary sci-comm projects with the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest, Center for Art Research, MacKenzie River Trust, Center for the Future of Forests and Society, and more. Classic jams include the Forest Fashion, PNW Tree Sign Project, Atmos-44 Weather Station, Environmental Wayfinding System, EPA-B Boats, and the controversial Arboreal Goth Collection. Writers include William Bonner, David Buckley Borden, Ashley Ferguson, Nancy Silvers, and Ian Vierck Escher. Edited by Ashley Ferguson. Foreword by Liska Chan.

The first edition (300 copies) was funded by the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes.

For a free copy via the USPS, venmo $12 (to cover shipping costs) to @David-Borden-17.

Complimentary copies will also be shipped with all online order from https://www.davidbuckleyborden.com/mercantile while supplies last.

Creativity Residency at the Bloedel Reserve

New Year. I’ll be spending January in Seattle as a “Creative Resident” at the Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island, Washington. The residency will support my LTER sci-comm research at the Landscape Architecture Foundation. As with past residencies, I will also be prospecting for new creative communities and projects while in the area. So, please reach out. I always welcome recommendations and referrals to folks that might be a good fit for future collaborations…or an insider guide to the local nerdy spots.

About the Bloedel Residency (in their own words): The mission of the Creative Residency program at Bloedel Reserve is to foster creative thinking that is inspired by nature and that explores the connection between humans and the environment. Selected artists and innovative thinkers are provided a three-week stay on the Bloedel grounds, with unlimited access to the Reserve’s 150 acres of sculpted gardens, forests, meadows, and wildlife habitats. Established in 2015, the program has welcomed Creative Residents from a wide variety of disciplines, giving them the time to nurture their passions and deepen the connection between creativity, nature, and humanity.

Reception (party!) for new Fieldscape Fellows Exhibition. Join us for a catered reception on Wednesday, November 13th from 4:30pm to 6:30pm in Lawrence Hall to celebrate the collaborative work of “What’s Your Sign?” by Janessa “J” Beltran, Marty Bird Boo Boo, David Buckley Borden, Trevor Hattabaugh, Macie Kelley, Keith Stanley, Nancy Silvers, Aidan Teppema, Ian Escher Vierck, and Sabine Winkler. We’ll be releasing some new work as part of the event.

Spread the word, and we hope to see you there… all are welcome.

Food and drinks provided by the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes.

Nerd-Out on Sci-Comm Design with DBB et al. (Warming Winter Edition) this February. This program is one part case-study presentation of recent PNW work, and one part focus group on the topic of environmental communication as a collaborative design process with the practice of landscape architecture. Reach out, and share, if interested. I have room for two more stops.....for the graphic's sake, a group with a short name would be ideal (see TKTK's). In all seriousness, it would be lovely to add New Haven and Providence tour dates for this Acela-enable adventure. Many thanks to the Landscape Architecture Foundation for supporting this design research. 

TCLF silent Auction is Live!

TCLF silent Auction. I’ve donated a couple silkscreen prints (Nurse Log collab with Trifecta Editions and an BWR Environmental Wayfinding System collab with James Weinberg) to The Cultural Landscape Foundation's annual silent auction. Support the cause and bid high. Bidding is open now. More info at https://www.tclf.org/tclfs-twentieth-annual-silent-auction 

Your generous donations helps TCLF continue to connect people to places through our education and advocacy initiatives.

Upcoming public lecture at the University of Washington on May 17th.

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.

Landscape Architecture Foundation Fellowship

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 EPA-B Boats Project on the Boards

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 Forest Courtesy Appointment

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 Artist Print

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

Ice Picks Now on the Board

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.

Additional Support from the LTER HJ Andrews and OSU College of Forestry

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.

New Fundraising EWS Bandana Collab with Jenny Ginn

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.

New Fundraiser Bandana

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.