
UBC Public Humanities Hub (PHH) Priority Thematic Research Incubator Grant for their project, “Sustainable Sound Installations: Harmonizing Aesthetics, Education, and Upcycling”. This project and team are affiliated with the Systems Beings Lab, a transdisciplinary research collective centred on systems and complexity education at UBC.
Principal Investigator:
Dr. Derek Gladwin, Department of Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Faculty of Education.
Team members include:
- Dr. Michele Koppes, Professor, Department of Geography, Faculty of Arts;
- Dr. Kedrick James, Professor of Teaching, Department of Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Faculty of Education;
- Dr. Naoko Ellis, Professor, Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Faculty of Applied Science;
- Dr. Danielle Ignace, Assistant Professor, Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, Faculty of Forestry; and
- Dr. Will Valley, Associate Dean, Equity, Decolonization, and Inclusion, and Associate Professor of Teaching, Faculty of Land & Food Systems.
Thematic area:
Environmental/Climate, Land & Place-Based Humanities
Abstract:
This project proposes a transdisciplinary collaboration blending sound, aesthetics, regenerative design, and sustainable engineering to build, install, and showcase wood resonators (sound speakers) at UBC. As noted by Berkowitz and Gibson (2022), the essence of public humanities lies in relationships across time, encompassing connections among humans, more-than-humans, and the shared built and natural environments. Such an invitation to consider the public humanities as systemic and interconnected is at the core of our project. We aim to explore and assess the ecological and aesthetic effects on public audiences resulting from the upcycling of waste into artistic installations, specifically focusing on wood resonators designed to function as speakers. It does so by bringing in a highly interdisciplinary team, mirroring the intersection of many disciplines and practices of this project. This research is driven by the following question: How might aesthetic experiences enhance public engagement with sustainability through creative use of upcycling?