Andrea Botero
You build on the work of others
My message is that transformational work is not a sprint. It’s more like a relay race. You build on the work of others. You must find those others who you are confident you can go for the long run it requires.
I thought about this idea of the difference between the sprint and the relay work, because a lot of the work now is like the processes are described in terms of the sprint. You run and you make it very fast and very efficient. But I think that transformational work also is the kind of work that requires the others’ urgency, it requires time and care and patience and it’s collective. Its not something that one individual person can take up on its shoulders. So I think that the relay race is probably a good way of thinking about it as something you do with others, that you build on the works of others. You have something that you must pass on and you must rely and have confidence and trust in those others with whom you are running.
You build on the work of others
I think that the relay race is probably a good way of thinking about something you do with others, that you build on the works of others. You have something you must pass on and you must rely and have confidence and trust in those others with whom you are running.
Things that were supposed to be quite natural, become very artificial or artificial things become entangled in nature
I don’t know if it needs to be kind of in the center for everybody, but it’s definitely vital in the sense that we we must find ways to be open and to be prepared for the answers to the questions we don’t have, [to be] multiple and come from various places that we aren’t aware of and that we must be respectful for. And most of those places and sites of thought are things that the Western dominant science, for example, hasn’t been taking into account very much and has even tried to swipe out. So there is a big debt we all have to shoulder and we should all be aspiring to be anti-racist and anti-colonial and anti-many things to to to get our shit together.
When you care, you cannot care for everything
I guess care talks to you about pausing and paying attention to things and asking why you pay attention to certain things and not others, because that is also something very important in care. When you care, you cannot care for everything. You have to choose what you’re caring for, because there’s limits to everything.
About Andrea Botero
My design works explore technologies, services, media formats and genres for collectives and communities. Through my research I aim to understand how collectives come to understand the design spaces available to them and how designers could support more various infrastructuring processes around them. Broadly, my work engages with the possibilities, and contradictions of participating in the creation of environments, tools and media that afford more relational and caring interactions among, and between people and their environment. This I have done multiple domains ranging from everyday life to scientific endeavors.
I am affiliated with the INUSE research group. Between fall 2019 and spring 2024 I am working on a project exploring distributed, collaborative and experimental arrangements for innovation and design otherwise (Studio|Lab|Forest), with generous funding from the Academy of Finland. In addition to that I am involved in the Creatures project, and ambitious H2020 project exploring the role of creative practices in sustainability transformations. Since August 2022 I am also Assocaite professor at the Design department
CreaTures resources
Dolejšová, M., Botero, A., Hee-Jeong Choi, J. and Ampatzidou, C. (2022). Walking in the Open Forest: Playing with Stories and Data. In GamiFIN Conference – GamiFOREST track(online).
Ampatzidou, C., Dolejšová, M., Choi, J. H-j. and Botero, A. (2021). Feral Ways Of Knowing And Doing: Tools And Resources For Transformational Creative Practice [Conference presentation]. 2021 Pivot Conference: Dismantling Reassembling – Tools for Alternative Futures.
Botero, A., Choi, J. H-j., Jain, A., Lapin, K., Sharma, S., Pineros, N., Lintunen, A. & Catlow, R. (2021). What is a forest? When is a forest? [Panel discussion]. Vienna Biennale for Change 2021.
Dolejšová, M., Ampatzidou, C., Choi, J. H-j., Botero, A., Beavers, I., Pokrywka, A., Van Amstel, F., Satomi, M. & Perner-Wilson, H. (2021). Feral Creative Practices Panel [Panel discussion]. Uroboros 2021 festival.
Choi, J. H-j. & Feral Drifters @ Care-full Design Lab (2021). More-than-Human Dérive – Uroboros Edition [Festival presentation]. Uroboros 2021 festival.
Dolejšová, M., Choi, J.H-j., Botero, A. and Ampatzidou, C. (2022). Open Forest: Data, Stories, and Walking-With. In Participatory Design Conference 2022: Volume 2 (PDC 2022 Vol. 2), August 19–September 01, 2022, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom. ACM, New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3537797.3537864
Botero, A., Dolejšová, M., Choi, J. H-j. and Ampatzidou, C. (2022). Open Forest: Walking with Forests, Stories, Data, and Other Creatures. interactions 29 (1) 48–53. https://doi.org/10.1145/3501766
Ampatzidou, C., Dolejšová, M., Choi, J. H-j. and Botero, A. (2022). Feral Ways Of Knowing And Doing: Tools And Resources For Transformational Creative Practice. In Proceedings of the 2021 Pivot Conference: Dismantling Reassembling – Tools for Alternative Futures. OCAD University, July 22-23, 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21606/pluriversal.2021.0016 Dolejšová, M., Ampatzidou, C., Houston, L., Light, A., Botero, A., Choi, J. H-j., Wilde, D., Altarriba Bertran, F., Davis, H., Gil, F., and Catlow, R. (2021). Designing for Transformative Futures: Creative Practice, Social Change and Climate Emergency. In Creativity and Cognition (C&C ’21), June 22, 23, 2021, Virtual Event, Italy. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 9 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3450741.3465242