manifesto

replace the idea of being 'productive' with instead being 'processive' - you cannot expect to build something new every day, you can expect to advance deeper into the process given a sufficiently strong intention.

“Research is a ceremony for building closer relationship with an idea”



— Shawn Wilson, ‘Research is Ceremony: Researching within an Indigenous Paradigm’.

"Necesitamos adaptabilidad a los cambios, atención al entorno y una cierta capacidad de improvisación. Nada depende exclusivamente de nuestra voluntad: todo trabajo es un trabajo en red, que conlleva negociaciones continuas con otros agentes, humanos y no humanos."



— Leonardo Solaas

I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own tastes.


Marcel Duchamp

"Las ideas que se le atribuyen al autor en realidad no le pertenecen, pues más bien son patrimonio de una cultura compartida, así toda escritura sería más bien reescritura."



— Valeria Mata

“The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.”



— Krishnamurti

"What loosens when you assume your role is to *discover* more so than it is to invent?"

"Jumping from flower to flower, from idea to idea, is a great way to rotate our own mental soil and oxygenate the intellect, but only as long as we change our definition of productivity and stop privileging the production of tangible results or successes."



— Marina van Zuylen

to overcome imposter syndrome, have confidence in your depth of curiosity rather than your expertise.

Every project brief should answer 5 questions. If it helps, you can even create document headings or presentation slides with these questions to structure your brief:



What, Who, Why, Why Now, and How.

What? What are we talking about? What’s the problem?

Who? Who does this impact? Who’s doing the work?

Why? Why is this important?

Why now? Why are we prioritising it now?

How? How do we plan to fix it? How might our plans change?

Sitting down to think requires more determination than acting for the sake of acting.

"Do what intrigues you, explore what interests you; think mystery, not mastery."



— Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way

"Is this the right question?" is the best question.

"Without play, there would be no Picasso. Without play, there is no experimentation. Experimentation is the quest for answers."



— Graphic Wit “Paul Rand: The Play Instinct” 1991

A garden is not an object, but a process.

I don't want to know more, I want to integrate more.



It's not about accumulation, it's about connection.

The word “practice” is such a wonderful word because it has time built into it: you can only practice if you practice

"A quien le cueste escribir, le diría que deje el archivo abierto. Esa laten-cia, esa luminosidad blanca va trabajando en uno."



"Un archivo abierto es el recuerdo de un deseo y la promesa de una continuidad"



— Santiago Loza

"The more I grow into my practice, the less concerned I am with being a purist."



— Hassan Rahim

"Escriban, abran los archivos y revisen, cambien la tipografía, prueben una y otra vez y regresen a la primera. Hagan un interlineado que les de calma e ilusión de haber escrito lo suficiente, justifiquen los párrafos, subrayen, sean fetichistas de las palabras, pongan títulos aunque luego los descarten, vuelvan a cerrar y abrir el documento. Esa manipulación obsesiva e inútil de lo escrito, también es escritura, perder el tiempo, demorarse, postergar el acto de escribir es una manera de hacerlo."



— Santiago Loza

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”



— Søren Kierkegaard

“The more you make, the more you can take away from and truly find yourself. You make a lot, then keep the things you like. That’s how you find your voice”

Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context: a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.