Varvara Shvetsova

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Despite all the signs telling us that we are doomed, as a society we still believe in a future that’s an improved vision of today. We are convinced that mass ecological campaigning, ethical politics and economic stability will save our civilisation from the climate apocalypse and self-destruction. Unfortunately, I don’t believe that anymore and cannot find the power to sustain this desperate pseudo-optimism. This sense that our civilisation is coming to an end acts as a starting point for all of my Design projects and lies at the centre of my creative practice. 

Rethinking the ultimate goal for climate action as a fight for every single thing on Earth other than human civilisation which is damaging everything around it, suddenly makes the goal much more achievable. Instead of trying to save the optimal conditions for our own existence, we should accept the self-destructive nature of humankind and the fate we made for ourselves. I believe that this acceptance despite being integrally nihilistic can in fact help us find a deep care for parts of the ecosystem that we otherwise wouldn’t.

This project challenges the human-centric approach to the way we view the world around and follows the philosophy proposed by Speculative realism and Dark Ecology, encouraging the viewer to pay closer attention to the non-human world and to experience it from a non-human perspective.