A year has passed since I did my thesis project and the project is still brewing in my mind, more relevant for every day that passes. I recently picked up a book called “Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat – Why It’s So Hard To Think Straight About Animals” by Hal Herzog. I saw it in my favorite cookbook store in Toronto of all places. Even if I’m only a few chapters into it, I’m learning new things for every page I’m turning, feeling inspired and very exited to see how Hal Herzog is taking on this massive subject of the human-animal relationship that I feel so passionate about. And he is doing it in such an approachable manner, still respecting how deeply complex this subject is. Great book so far, can’t wait to read the rest of it.
Making the Zoo Manifesto I took a strong stand against the zoo’s. I basically want them gone and replaced with awe-driven all-digital learning centers where you get to experience the animal in its real habitat without keeping the actual animal hostage. Nothing I’ve read or learned since I made the project has changed my mind, it’s has only verified and solidified how imperative it is that we humans start understanding exactly how much out of whack the eco-balance is and how we desperately need to change it!
That said, I know the subject of the human animal relationship evokes a lot of feelings in a lot of people. And it is a relationship that affects us all everyday, whether we eat dogs or pet them, whether we look at the lion in the zoo or hunt her in the wild (well, actually in my book this would be the same..) Some are vegetarians because of animal welfare issues but buy leather shoes. Or won’t eat meat but they eat fish. Or myself who feel strongly about all things sustainable but still buy pepperoni pizza once in a while… It’s all full of contradictions and most people probably feel it’s a battle lost in advance which make them stop bothering and even trying to make active choices against the corporations and institutions that undermine a healthy globe.
I wish as a designer to take this challenge on. It’s massive and we need to work together to come up with solutions where we offer better choices to the public. It’s (almost) that simple. Let me make an example: Why is coke so big? Certainly not because it taste good, it’s actually pretty horrible, try not to drink it for a while and then have some – I find it extremely sweet and just wrong tasting. It’s not because it’s cool to drink it either – we are no longer in the 80ies when people actually were susceptible to the cool factor in ad-campaigns. It’s because it’s there!! That’s the point. It’s available everywhere, even in the most remote regions of the world and this kind of massive distribution makes the intake of coke so massive.
But what if we were to present people with better choices? It is not that simple, I do know that, but we need to give people the opportunity to make informed choices in a manner that can compete with a visit to the zoo, with buying a 99cent breakfast, with throwing batteries in the trash….
How can we rally to participate in creating alternatives?
