Something's Growing On...

Abstract: he ‘Something’s growing on…’ project explores how a picture book for children can celebrate and highlight the complexity and importance of nature and its unseen microcosms. It is a designinitiated attempt to evoke awareness and appreciation for the other-than-human worlds — and through this, to address the anthropocentric view of our times. By today, the need for holistic change has become undeniable. Human-centered attitudes and activities — the unbalanced nature-human relationship — threaten not only the harmonious planetary existence but also our future survival. Thus, expanding our perception and connection with nature, recognising our kinship, and cultivating an enhanced care and responsibility for the needs and well-being of ALL living and nonliving beings is an urgent global mission. Childhood is a crucial formal period in one’s life, when, among many others, the attitudes and relations towards nature are founded. Therefore, it is essential to provide young people with spaces where they can nourish their sense of attention, care and sensitivity to the other-than-human world. This project investigates whether a picture book can trigger such values in children in a way that avoids the imposition of predetermined convictions and leaves room for readers’ interpretation and meaning-making. The thesis is based on and presents the design process that was informed by relevant theories on the potential of storytelling, children’s attachment to nature and the possible effects of portrayal methods such as anthropomorphism in picture books. One of the key moments of these investigations was to explore the means of visual communication for “translating” and yet truthfully representing the nature of nature in a children’s book: finding a mode of mediation that is inviting, accessible and provides the young readers’ imagination with triggering notions, and that at the same time embodies the complexity of the reality presented. The project’s outcome — an illustrated wordless book about a bustling-buzzing community — intends to provide its readers with space for in-depth observation, perceptive exploration and personal interpretation — and through this hopes to be a source of motivation for a self-initiated understanding, and a sense of appreciation and care for the World’s outstanding entanglement.