The divide between humans and nature strongly affected me after moving to London from Wiltshire - and I felt hugely separated from ‘the natural world.’ This led me to explore the notion of reconnecting to nature without leaving the city, this time through an instruction manual. I designed a kit that contains a questionaire, instruction manual, and disposable camera that encourages direct engagement with a person's immediate surroundings through the instructions.
The aim of the instructions is to alter behavior towards ecolobeing. Ecolobeing is a term I have created in order to ontologically combine humans & the natural world, allowing a new understanding of this relationship. This re-wording allows the user to move away from the belief that “nature” is an entity far removed from ourselves.
I selected a group of 10 individuals in order to test out the kit. The group was a mix of males and females, rural, and city based, from 18-85.. I selected a broad mix of people, in order to identify who needed ecolobeing the most.
I next built a compendium of tasks and categorised them by activity type (e.g.photography, sound, making) so that I could easily select tasks for the next round of kits. I tailored each user's Kit 2 depending on which activity type they most enjoyed/benefited from during Kit 1.
