Natsai was invited to deliver a keynote at In Focus: Research, a symposium dedicated to the radical power of research for envisioning new approaches to design, hosted by The World Around and Future Observatory at the Design Museum in London. With a focus on a systemic approach to the bioeconomy, Natsai took the audience on a journey through Normal Phenomena of Life’s time machine: from laboratory scale intervention to designing products for living economies. Normal Phenomena of Life—Faber Futures’ biodesign-native lifestyle brand and innovation pipeline—is an ever-evolving experiment exercising organism-centred innovation, creating regenerative value chains, as well as civic agency in the emerging biological futures. The talk explores this prototyping space and is available to watch here.
The curated series invited a group of prominent speakers with critical approaches to contemporary design practice, including Dr Julia King, an architect and researcher studying the rapidly urbanising world, Sammy Baloji, a photographer investigating the impacts of extractive mining in the Republic of Congo, Henk Ovink, a sustainable water advocate, Dr Adrian Lahoud, an architect and a Dean of the School of Architecture at the Royal College of Art engaging with climate justice, Feifei Zhou, an architect and researcher, applying more-than-human tools to synthesise understandings of coastal infrastructures, and Indy Johar from Dark Matter Labs on the value of design in the green transition.
The full program of talks is available here.