Senior Project

Visions of the Rewilding Renaissance Rewilding Mind & Heart
#1

Hey everyone,

I’m currently beginning my senior year at Trillium Charter School in Portland.

In order to graduate I am required to complete a Senior Project, which is an demonstration of what skills I’ve gathered in my education and applying it to a project that reflects my interests and passions. I have chosen to create an instalation exhibit about Rewilding and Wilderness Restoration, in which I will incorporate the documentations of my own experiences, skills I’ve learned, research and new conclusions I’ve come up with myself about the pressing issues of the environment. To me Rewilding is a lifestlye, I want to teach others and learn more about this alternative way of life as well as sharing skills I’ve aquired about restoring wilderness.

Anyways, I am looking for support and advice about my project. I would love to maybe learn some skills from some of you that know more about Rewilding and are more experienced. I plan on including a Wigwam as my main demonstration, and setting it up inside as it would look if I was living in the wild with it.

I’m very inexperienced in the technicalities of Rewilding, but I really want to learn more and teach others about it. So if you can offer me anything, it would be greatly appreciated. Anything from good sources to skill sharing would help.

#2

That sounds like a wonderful project.

Wilderness skills and ecological restoration are, of course, very noble goals. But I would humbly suggest that the circle does not complete itself there.

Since you asked for advice, here’s mine: present a more holistic picture of rewilding, which includes tribal social structure, child-rearing, cultural mythology, etc. How have other indigenous tribes organized and directed their group behaviors?.. and how would YOU want to organize your own rewilding tribe?

These are skills of social interaction … their workings are invisible because they exist inside the mind, but they have very real results. :slight_smile:

Willem’s blog might be a good place to start. I have a hunch he’d help point you to some other resources if you asked him.

#3

Thanks! And don’t worry, I plan on including much of what you mentioned. What I posted was mostly an abstract…Just a title really. The project will consist of an installation, as well as a 20+ page paper. So I think the whole circle will be represented. But thank you for the suggestions, I hadn’t thought of some of them.

And yes, Willem’s blog is one of the resources I’ve been looking at. Although there is so much material floating around, it’s hard to narrow it all down.

#4

Hey Rebbecca, any ideas on how those aspects you mentioned could be presented in her installation?

#5

Hmmmm, well, I’m not really sure what kind of space you’ll be using or how you envision using the space. My first suggestion would be to take what you’ve already envisioned so far and expand or enhance it to incorporate descriptions of invisible technologies/social organization (perhaps accompanied by photos or physical objects) in a way that gracefully fits into your vision.

But, if that wouldn’t work, or if you don’t have a clear vision for it yet, I can think of two installation approaches: the blender approach or the circle approach.

The blender approach is not exactly a lack of organization, but it IS a rejection of separating different aspects of a rewilding lifestyle into different “zones” of the installation. So instead of having a Tools section, an Ecology section, a Tribal Social Structure section, a Mythology section, etc etc etc… mash it all up, make it work as a holistic living, breathing installation, instead of being frozen and static. Make it something greater than the sum of its parts.

As a college student, I used to study urban planning. The typical American suburb is divided into zones. Housing in this area, shopping in this area, offices in this area, government in this area, etc. But these days, urban planners are knocking down the old zoning restrictions and finding ways to mix these different functions throughout an urban development.

I no longer have faith in the profession/institution of urban planning (obviously), but I think there is something to be said for organization with fluidity, as opposed to organization with rigid boundaries.

The circle approach would separate these things (although the boundaries could have blending and overlap instead of rigidity), but they would all be facing toward each other in a nonhierarchical way, AND they would all come together in the middle, which is a really cool spatial metaphor.

Well, if you need me to expand on what I mean (maybe I’ve been too abstract?), let me know.

#6

The circle idea sounds cool. I guess the vision I had of it, was creating a representation on how I want to live. The lifestlye I want to create for myself, based on what I’ve learned from others. But I’m not sure if that’s the best expression of Rewilding, so perhaps a more “overview” kind of installation, with the circle idea, would teach people better. I don’t know, I’m still playing with ideas. The only concrete thing is the Wigwam right now.

#7

A representation of how you want to live… I’m confused, can you be more specific? Do you mean that you want to “built a stage set”, so to speak?

#8

Kind of…I don’t know, just showing people things I plan to use in my future, like how to cook in the wild and how to make certain tools, etc. I just dont want it to be too “technical”, if that makes sense.

#9

I think if you went about and looked at most ‘modern conveniences’ you would find a previous counterpart to it. Like say food preservation, from the modern refrigerator (which requires much energy and industry to create) to drying and other methods of food preservation which are much more economical. You can look at things from almost every modern situation and think of wild counterparts. Social structure, from hierarchy to egalitarian, social past times, medicine, art/culture, education, language, etc. etc. Almost everything has a wild counterpart.

#10

Ooh, good point. That kinda helps me organize my thoughts a bit better. Thank you love. Those would be good contrasts to try to present. Alternatives.

#11

Anarchy is often described as direct, or face-to-face, democracy. You could present anarchic tribal social structure as “rewilding” the indirect democracy that you find in civilization.