2019–2021
Tracing Afterlives: Visualising the deep time persistence
of plastic waste
How can designers make change in a world that often regulates them to makers of the visual?
This is a question I first began grappling with during university, and one that continues to shape my professional practice.
An opportunity to explore this emerged while volunteering, when I encountered warped plastic marine waste. Collected by ocean clean-up organisation Eco Barge Clean Seas Inc., these plastics exhibited slow material changes—warping, melting and clusters of marine growths—that made visible the fact that plastic continues to exist after it leaves human use. These afterlives challenge our normative perceptions of consumption, responsibility and long-term environmental impact.
Tracing Afterlives became a Master of Design (Research) inquiry at the University of Technology Sydney. Using a Research through Design methodology, I investigated how designers might translate slow, nonhuman concepts—such as the deep‑time persistence of plastic—into accessible forms of communication that could shift perceptions of plastic as disposable and open up space for genuine reflection and change.
Over the course of two years, I undertook a portfolio of design experiments exploring photography, material play, speculative narratives and participatory methods as tools for sense‑making and dialogue.
This project demonstrates how design research and storytelling can be used to:
The full research project is documented here︎︎︎.
This project is a continuation of the research began in Plastic︎︎︎.
Tracing Afterlives: Visualising the deep time persistence
of plastic waste
How can designers make change in a world that often regulates them to makers of the visual?
This is a question I first began grappling with during university, and one that continues to shape my professional practice.
An opportunity to explore this emerged while volunteering, when I encountered warped plastic marine waste. Collected by ocean clean-up organisation Eco Barge Clean Seas Inc., these plastics exhibited slow material changes—warping, melting and clusters of marine growths—that made visible the fact that plastic continues to exist after it leaves human use. These afterlives challenge our normative perceptions of consumption, responsibility and long-term environmental impact.
Tracing Afterlives became a Master of Design (Research) inquiry at the University of Technology Sydney. Using a Research through Design methodology, I investigated how designers might translate slow, nonhuman concepts—such as the deep‑time persistence of plastic—into accessible forms of communication that could shift perceptions of plastic as disposable and open up space for genuine reflection and change.
Over the course of two years, I undertook a portfolio of design experiments exploring photography, material play, speculative narratives and participatory methods as tools for sense‑making and dialogue.
This project demonstrates how design research and storytelling can be used to:
- make complex, abstract issues tangible
- support reflection and behaviour change
- create space for discussion rather than persuasion
The full research project is documented here︎︎︎.
This project is a continuation of the research began in Plastic︎︎︎.
2019–2021
Tracing Afterlives: Visualising the deep time persistence
of plastic waste
How can designers make change in a world that often regulates them to makers of the visual?
This is a question I first began grappling with during university, and one that continues to shape my professional practice.
An opportunity to explore this emerged while volunteering, when I encountered warped plastic marine waste. Collected by ocean clean-up organisation Eco Barge Clean Seas Inc., these plastics exhibited slow material changes—warping, melting and clusters of marine growths—that made visible the fact that plastic continues to exist after it leaves human use. These afterlives challenge our normative perceptions of consumption, responsibility and long-term environmental impact.
Tracing Afterlives became a Master of Design (Research) inquiry at the University of Technology Sydney. Using a Research through Design methodology, I investigated how designers might translate slow, nonhuman concepts—such as the deep‑time persistence of plastic—into accessible forms of communication that could shift perceptions of plastic as disposable and open up space for genuine reflection and change.
Over the course of two years, I undertook a portfolio of design experiments exploring photography, material play, speculative narratives and participatory methods as tools for sense‑making and dialogue.
This project demonstrates how design research and storytelling can be used to:
The full research project is documented here︎︎︎.
This project is a continuation of the research began in Plastic︎︎︎.
Tracing Afterlives: Visualising the deep time persistence
of plastic waste
How can designers make change in a world that often regulates them to makers of the visual?
This is a question I first began grappling with during university, and one that continues to shape my professional practice.
An opportunity to explore this emerged while volunteering, when I encountered warped plastic marine waste. Collected by ocean clean-up organisation Eco Barge Clean Seas Inc., these plastics exhibited slow material changes—warping, melting and clusters of marine growths—that made visible the fact that plastic continues to exist after it leaves human use. These afterlives challenge our normative perceptions of consumption, responsibility and long-term environmental impact.
Tracing Afterlives became a Master of Design (Research) inquiry at the University of Technology Sydney. Using a Research through Design methodology, I investigated how designers might translate slow, nonhuman concepts—such as the deep‑time persistence of plastic—into accessible forms of communication that could shift perceptions of plastic as disposable and open up space for genuine reflection and change.
Over the course of two years, I undertook a portfolio of design experiments exploring photography, material play, speculative narratives and participatory methods as tools for sense‑making and dialogue.
This project demonstrates how design research and storytelling can be used to:
- make complex, abstract issues tangible
- support reflection and behaviour change
- create space for discussion rather than persuasion
The full research project is documented here︎︎︎.
This project is a continuation of the research began in Plastic︎︎︎.