Students interpret research in art and design exhibition

By using visual communication as a language, art students have created works that provide new entrances to complex research. With design, imagination and humour their works evoke visitor’s curiosity and reflections around different angles of sustainability.

Photo: Calle Elf

The eight works in the exhibition are based on the interdisciplinary, international research project Inequality and the Biosphere, which is led by researchers from the Beijer Institute and the Stockholm Resilience Center. The research areas of equality and environmental change are usually treated separately from each other, but if we are to create a true picture of reality and our challenges, we need to understand how the two are linked. Inequality and the Biosphere deals with how different sustainability aspects affect each other in complex cause and effect processes – so-called feedback loop.

Among the works presented are ‘I visited the Aral Sea and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt’, by Eliot Siekkinen Lydéen paraphrasing souvenir t-shirts to highlight travel and overconsumption, and how inequality can lead to environmental degradation which in turn leads to even greater inequality. ‘The contract’, by Ida Gustafsson illustrates that being able to choose the most sustainable for the environment can be a privilege and the inaccessibility itself can increase both social and economic inequality.

The exhibition Feedbacks | Inequality and the Biosphere is a collaboration between Beckmans School of Design, Svenskt Tenn and the Beijer Institute, shown 1-10 April at the design store Svenskt Tenn in Stockholm. Through the Kjell and Märta Beijer Foundation, Svenskt Tenn’s profits support research at the Beijer Institute.