Bio
Siren Elise Wilhelmsen is a Norwegian designer with an interest in exploring temporal and natural processes within everyday surroundings and objects, aiming to inspire reflection and foster behavioural change through new perspectives on often-overlooked subjects and interactions.
She graduated in Industrial Design from the University of the Arts Berlin in 2010 and has worked as a freelance designer in Germany and Norway. Her work has been featured in various international venues, like the Triennale Design Museum in Milan, the National Museum in Beijing, and MUDAC, the Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts in Lausanne, and her contributions to design have accumulated considerable awards, including the German Design Award and the Young Designer of the Year Award from Norsk Form.
In her PhD project at the University of Bergen's Faculty of Fine Art, Music, and Design, Siren has explored sustainable design strategies and approaches to work with local resources, systems and collaborators, aiming to foster new interactions with the environment through design.
Siren Elise Wilhelmsen
PhD in Artistic Research
University of Bergen
Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design (KMD)
Department of Design
Supervisors: Mette L'orange (architect MNAL and visual artist) and Tim Parry-Williams (Professor of Art: Textiles, KMD)
Artistic reflection and documentation of artistic results submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor (PhD) in Artistic Research at the University of Bergen.
Date of public defence: 29.11.2024
Abstract
Odd New Spring: Towards Evolving Landscapes and a Reorientation in Design Practice investigates methods and strategies for designers to engage with local natural surroundings, material culture, and communities in new ways. The designer's position is suggested to develop towards the role of a mediator and creator of positive future scenarios in a changing world, both on a personal and societal level.
In this project, unwanted and problematised plants—specifically Invasive Alien Plant Species—serve as a navigational tool and a starting point for generating knowledge and fostering new local activities. Through an open and inquisitive approach, the project challenges prevailing perceptions of these plants as strictly agonistic. By juxtaposing human relationships with them against broader issues of sustainability, production, consumption, and natural resource management, their role in our ecosystem is explored. The project collects and maps stories about the origins of the plants, investigating both their individual and collective properties. This process reveals the potential of the "new flora" as a foundation for developing local material cultures and imagining alternative, coexistent futures. Alongside gathering and reorganising data, numerous material experiments have been undertaken based on traditional craft techniques. These hands-on explorations make theoretical and speculative proposals tangible and exemplify new possibilities for engagement. Through the artistic work, the plants unite stories from the past with visions for the future, encouraging reflection on present classifications and relations.
In June 2024, the artistic results were publicly showcased in the exhibition Odd New Spring in the Tower Hall at The University Museum in Bergen's Natural History Collections. Here, multiple layers of discourse—interwoven stories, embodied knowledge, questions, and reflections—were materialised. The artistic work culminated in a "New Ground" for navigating and collectively reimagining future scenarios for societal transition and new modes of making. The New Ground is composed of four main elements:
1. A series of (four) conversations demonstrating the importance of `future-making' as a collective activity, developing across disciplines.
2. A series of (seventeen) double-faced woven textiles, conceptually defined as flags, as they present and re-classify a selection of plants through recognisable botanical representations and alternative narratives. These tapestries of information act as storytellers, symbolising identity, belonging, history, values, and hope.
3. Experimental material proposals, with a particular focus on plant dyeing, fibre applications, and the plant Japanese Knotweed, aim to outline various possibilities for engaging with the "new flora".
4. A conceptual map for orienting on the New Ground that provides an overview of the complexity of the systems and elements entangled in the context of developing new design-led practices and interventions.
Consequently, the project proposes the role of the (transition) designer as a developer and promoter of new material culture and a bridge-builder between disciplines and professional silos. Forming kinship with the "new flora" has become a method for "landing" in the local landscape and establishing new relationships with both humans and non-humans living there.
This exposition, accessible as a downloadable PDF, presents the reflection component for Odd New Spring: Towards Evolving Landscapes and a Reorientation in Design Practice. It features text and images from both the process and the final exhibition. It also includes four conversations between Siren Elise Wilhelmsen and practitioners from different fields. These individuals engage in discourses concerning our relationships with our environments and how policies and cultural practices influence how we interact with and shape our surroundings. The conversations, held between March and April 2024, introduce us to Professor and plant ecologist Vigdis Vandvik, permaculture designer and food forest creator Benedicte Brun, fresco artist and conservator Bent Erik Myrvoll, and rope maker Sarah Sjøgreen.
Additionally, the reflection component includes two appendices: (a) the conference paper Plants out of Place? A Design-Driven Investigation of Colour and Material Possibilities within a Group of 'Invasive Alien Plant Species' in a Norwegian Context, published in Colour and Colorimetry: Multidisciplinary Contributions (2022); and (b) the essay Fieldnotes from the Forbidden Garden, published in the book BioColours, Aalto University Press (2023).