summary
It is important for researchers to channel academic credential to support land-based community in their environmental and cultural stewardship, in turn also mutating academic community to more analogies and cosmologies that can generate questions and ways.
I think this could be my role, because to hold both pleasure and responsibility, information and change, disorder and process. (I realize this sound vague, I will elaborate.)
preface
- in my previous statement (graph bandit lab history and vision statement (20241104)), I constrained my world and self and wishes within the natural event of development.
- but around march, after the phd application, cold emails, interviews, trips, conferences… I realized that development is only one aspect of natural life that I am interested in. More fundamentally, I care about treating life through a coalition between ways of knowing, because that would be beautiful and also more root based.
- what changed about my research studio-lab in the past 1 month of march and april is, i gathered some specific organizations who can do land-based communities for mutual thriving from cosmologies to specific projects with me.
- in this document i want to summarize what i see is my current mission as a studio-lab-person-becoming-… I am summarizing based on my super long diary of this month as well as my current recall of the feelings and insights that remain true.
March-July projects
- How to herd sheep: biophysics translating knowledge of dine sheepherding in return to support their land and economic access.
- Wild metaphysics for us embyos: zine of the examples and metaphysics and exercises in developmental biology.
- Embodied practices for the body like a plant: toolkit for someone whose body, body image, social emotion and labor lifestyle was feeling so good on the mountain and want to translate it back into the city.
- Weekly blog of learning in public and creative projects for the 3-month sabbatical in China?! (Currently in Figjam)
vibe
- keywords: observation, reflection, knowledge cycles, sharing, community, bridging gaps (science/community, academia/public, personal/universal), exploring different ways of knowing (science, art, indigenous knowledge, personal experience), finding meaning
- attitudes: pensive, curious, honest, open, flowing, seeking connection, brave
- current stage/personal need:
- problem: dealing with spreading too thin across different topics and places, which make it challenging to commit deeply to one path or place.
- to try: moving from absorbing information and experiences towards actively shaping my path and contributing my synthesis.
- key scenes:
- I would feel sad if I am seen as first an odd tree whose preciousness is only discoverable by people who try hard enough. So I will accept and treasure that not everyone fit, and I will share even when I fear judgment so that others may see and judge for themselves. to give others the opportunity to respond without assuming how they will respond. the context is my tendency to analyze experiences rather than simply feeling or acting within them, possibly as a defense mechanism or habit developed from academic training or childhood having difficulty with socializing.
- context (what is happening around me): influence of technology, gentrification, indigenous rights and knowledge, the nature of scientific progress, community building, and the search for spiritual or philosophical grounding outside traditional religion.