On drawing as a core methodology, not only to record and understand dynamic conditions but also to devise new approaches and imaginaries for New Orleans and beyond.

Un/bounded Engineering and Evolutionary Stability seminar reflection

In designing and operating large-scale infrastructures, humans tend toward fixity—despite increasingly dynamic conditions, such as those at play in the Mississippi River Delta context. The Anthropocene River Campus seminar “Un/bounded Engineering and Evolutionary Stability” sought to explore the multi-scalar effects of such human interventions, and how new futures might be imagined that engage and work with these dynamics. To do so, the seminar employed the practice of drawing as its core methodology, not only to record and understand current conditions but also to devise new approaches and imaginaries. In this reflection, seminar convener Aron Chang explains why drawing represented such an apt tool, the different forms it took and outcomes it produced throughout the seminar, and how it enabled connections to be drawn far beyond the immediate context of New Orleans.