Hello Loves, This week’s post is a completely intuitive riff on autonomous ways of creating and designing and my current thoughts on why this is imperative now more than ever. I go into the importance of beginning to question and decondition from how we’ve been told creating needs to be, and what can emerge when we allow ourselves space to contemplate what we do and how we do it. I finish up with some contemplations that we marinate within and explore in Weaving Worlds, an online experience I facilitate on reimagining sustainability and new possibilities for fashion-textiles, design, creativity and beyond. I hope you enjoy this quick snippet. The transcript is below and I’m posting the contemplations here too for whoever it may be of use for. These are designed to be contemplated upon, meaning allow your entire being (Spirit + Heart + Mind + Body) to marinate in them.Let go of your mind trying to ‘work it out’. Allow them to permeate through you, giving space for what wants to emerge when and how it wants to emerge. This is not a linear process. Go about your day and see what unfolds ;) Contemplations: * What fashion-textile/ design/ creative/ business expectations am I carrying that are not aligned for me anymore? * What expectations feel heavy and not mine? * Where in my body do I feel excitement vs. obligation about my creativity/ work? * How does my heart yearn to create? * How might my creative practice serve both my personal heart’s desires and contribute to my community? * How can I connect to my community more as part of my creative work? * Through what rhythms does my creativity naturally want to move at? Where do I feel rushed vs. spacious? * What aesthetics, materials, and ways of making feel most authentic to me? * Where can I practice alternative ways of knowing and doing within my practice? Based upon what emerges above for you, what is one micro-action you can take today toward this new way of being? REMEMBER: It’s through micro, repetitive, intentional actions that larger shifts occur. Feel free to share below. Loads of Love, Ania xxx TRANSCRIPT: (00:00:00): Hello everybody, so today I wanted to do an audio recording instead of a written Substack post. (00:00:11): And what is big on my heart this week that I wanted to share is this idea, (00:00:19): this concept of being an autonomous designer, (00:00:23): being an autonomous creative, (00:00:26): and what that means, (00:00:27): and particularly the relevance and importance of that right now in our world as (00:00:32): where so many of us are doing change and sustainability and regeneration work. (00:00:40): And so we've been fed this idea through the overarching systems of modernity, (00:00:48): coloniality, (00:00:49): patriarchy, (00:00:50): you know, (00:00:50): the gist, (00:00:52): that there is one way to be in the world. (00:00:55): And from that, (00:00:57): we've been fed this idea that sustainability looks a certain way and that creative (00:01:03): practices look a certain way. (00:01:05): If you're in fashion, there's very particular fashion definitions, design as well. (00:01:12): And what's actually the case in our world is that we're all diverse beings and we (00:01:18): all come from diverse places and (00:01:21): And the spaces we inhabit, (00:01:23): none of this is universal, (00:01:25): even though there's been this overarching universal power structures. (00:01:30): So everything is contextual, (00:01:32): diverse, (00:01:33): and responsive to locality and the particular experiences and life, (00:01:39): human and more than human, (00:01:41): that exist in that place. (00:01:45): And so we can see right now in the world that these one size fits all models in our (00:01:52): world today are actually failing us because they do not honour the local desires (00:01:58): and the diverse community needs of each place and space. (00:02:04): And this is happening in sustainability and in all fields. (00:02:09): And so moving beyond this one size fits all model for sustainability is (00:02:14): allows us to reconnect to our community desires and needs and visions, (00:02:23): as well as the individual desires, (00:02:26): needs and visions. (00:02:29): And so here, (00:02:33): this way of being, (00:02:34): this way of thinking, (00:02:36): moves us away from a homogenization that we're seeing so much in the world today, (00:02:41): of everything looking the same, (00:02:42): being the same, (00:02:43): and we're all expected to think the same. (00:02:46): We can see this so much on social media right now, (00:02:49): where there is so much cancelling of anyone who has a different worldview, (00:02:54): of anyone that has a different opinion. (00:02:56): And this is part of this project of homogenization. (00:03:01): And so how do we move away from that toward reconnecting to diverse creative (00:03:08): expressions that are rooted in context, (00:03:11): that are rooted in the places where we inhabit, (00:03:14): and that are authentic to our communities of where and who we're designing, (00:03:20): creating with, (00:03:21): who we're designing, (00:03:22): creating for, (00:03:23): but also that they're authentic to us on an individual level. (00:03:29): So what's needed here for whoever is a creative, a designer, a scholar, (00:03:40): anyone in this field of work, (00:03:44): is this sensitivity to balancing the communal, (00:03:49): so the community needs, (00:03:52): desires, (00:03:54): as well as our individual needs and desires. (00:03:57): So in this Western world of hyper-individualism, (00:04:04): where separation is the underlying way we're functioning in this world, (00:04:10): unfortunately, (00:04:11): and we are moving away from that. (00:04:14): How do we come into a more communal way of creating, designing, researching, teaching? (00:04:24): But also, how do we honor still our creative individual expressions? (00:04:34): So this idea of autonomy is, (00:04:36): and I think sovereignty is very closely interlinked here, (00:04:41): is about how do we start deconditioning from the ways we've been told are true? (00:04:51): So these overarching worldviews of how we are in the world, (00:04:55): but particularly for design, (00:04:56): for creative fields, (00:04:59): the way we've been told (00:05:02): the way we've been taught in educational systems and in industry, (00:05:06): how to design, (00:05:08): what aesthetically looks good, (00:05:10): how we connect to process, (00:05:12): how we connect to materials, (00:05:13): to tools, (00:05:16): what looks good, (00:05:16): what doesn't, (00:05:17): what do we use, (00:05:18): what we don't. (00:05:20): So there's a lot of dogma and rigidity here. (00:05:24): and rules around this which has stemmed from the overarching value systems of the modern world. (00:05:34): And (00:05:44): So we can look at this as a form of deconditioning as well as decolonizing, (00:05:52): where we can start questioning the prevailing norms within modern Western design (00:05:59): and creative industries and the largest systems and paradigms at play. (00:06:04): so what if we deconditioned from fashion textile design creative industry (00:06:09): expectations what could this look like what do we want it to look like what do we (00:06:16): want our creative journeys our creative systems our creative outputs to be rooted (00:06:22): in what value systems do we want them to be rooted in (00:06:26): And I know many of you might be thinking, (00:06:29): well, (00:06:30): you know, (00:06:30): how can I do this when I'm working for someone else and I'm stuck within their (00:06:36): worldview, (00:06:36): within their paradigm? (00:06:38): And I get this question a lot. (00:06:40): And like everything I explore here, none of this happens overnight. (00:06:47): This is work we need to do for the rest of our lives if we are to see it come into fruition. (00:06:56): And so what this is about, (00:06:58): what I'm just suggesting and planting the seeds for, (00:07:03): is how do we just start to question, (00:07:10): am I happy with how I'm doing this, (00:07:17): with how I'm creating this? (00:07:18): Does this align with my values? (00:07:24): What do I think I'm ready to leave behind? (00:07:30): What would I like to try and experiment with next? (00:07:34): So just beginning to contemplate doesn't mean we have to completely, (00:07:38): you know, (00:07:39): scrap everything we're doing because that's really not possible for many of us, (00:07:45): for most of us. (00:07:46): But how do we begin to start contemplating? (00:07:51): And when we start contemplating, (00:07:57): Do any aha moments come to mind? (00:08:02): Do any ideas or revelations come to mind? (00:08:10): Again, this is in the micro actions, so we start contemplating first. (00:08:14): What are perhaps some belief systems that are not aligned with my values anymore (00:08:20): that I don't really need to take on? (00:08:23): What would we like to believe instead? (00:08:29): And from this place, (00:08:30): perhaps little ideas may emerge on how you might start to integrate this into the (00:08:38): everyday practice, (00:08:39): into your everyday practice, (00:08:41): into your everyday life, (00:08:44): business, (00:08:44): and so on. (00:08:46): So yes, (00:08:48): many of us are working for others, (00:08:51): but when we start to question and decondition, (00:08:55): it creates space. (00:08:59): for something else to emerge. (00:09:02): And it might not come instantly, it might be very subtle. (00:09:05): And then we might have an idea about a small process change that we could implement (00:09:13): within our business. (00:09:14): We might have an idea about, oh, actually, I think (00:09:19): this material would be better suited for this, (00:09:22): and I can see that its impact is smaller than this, (00:09:27): but ooh, (00:09:27): why didn't I see this before? (00:09:28): Ooh, maybe we c
