Studio 2
Developed within the Studio 2 Module, and part of an evolving publication series, New Fossils of the Anthropocene (2024) investigates the visible material traces of human activity on Earth, approaching plastics, infrastructures, chemical residues, and hybrid geological formations as “fossils” that inscribe entangled histories of extraction, production, and consumption onto the planet’s surface. Through visual research, material experimentation, and critical inquiry, it examines how these traces become both evidence and agents, while questioning how visual communication mediates and renders ecological transformations perceptible. Building on this foundation, Atmospheric Agencies (2025) shifts the focus from the visible to the often imperceptible forces shaping the ecological crisis, inviting students to engage with forms of agency that operate beyond direct perception, such as emissions, data flows, toxic particles, and algorithmic systems. Through mapping, listening, and speculative visualisation, it explores how design can trace and make tangible the unseen patterns that structure everyday life. Together, these publications reflect an ongoing design research approach in which visual communication is positioned as both implicated in and capable of interrogating the complex entanglements between material and immaterial conditions shaping contemporary planetary transformations.
