Design students visualise our dependency on nature’s services

In the exhibition In My Backyard at the design store Svenskt Tenn in Stockholm, students in Visual Communication at Beckmans School of Design interpret the research carried out by the Beijer Institute on ecosystem services and their crucial role for sustainable social development.

Research more easily accessible through visual communication

A common aim for the students was to create a broader understanding of ecosystem services and why they are key both for own well-being and the planet’s.

“By providing new entrypoints to current research, visual communication can create an understanding of complex issues and create empathy and commitment in a way that for instance news stories cannot convey. In this course, the students have transformed complex information into independent artistic projects that can make all of us reflect on our dependence on nature”, says João Doria, associate professor at the Visual Communication program.

The exhibition shows 16 works that is rooted in the Beijer Institute’s research on ecosystem services, a concept that includes all the positive things that nature provides us with and that make visible that nature’s services cannot be taken for granted. The focus was on ecosystem services in cities. Nature’s diversity of ecosystems and organisms is a prerequisite for our well-being, both at the individual and at society level. The Beijer Institute’s research shows, among other things, why green areas, trees and wetlands are cost-effective investments in sustainable urban development, but also what happens if these are neglected.