Imaginary: Speculative Forest Devices
Speculative design to facilitate children in non-urban Amazonian communities to recognize local technologies, expand imagination and engage in technological authorship.
Imaginary: Speculative Forest Devices is a participatory workshop developed with 27 children in the Rio Preto-Jacundá Extractive Reserve in Rondônia, Brazil.
The workshop began with the technologies and networks already present in their lives.
Participants used cotton thread to create a physical network between people and everyday systems. Drawing, writing, mapping, conversation, and voice recording expanded this first exercise. These activities created a shared picture of the technologies surrounding the group.
The second part focused on invention.
Children imagined devices connected to their own environments and concerns. Their proposals combined technological functions with animals, plants, local materials, environmental issues, social needs, and everyday experiences.
The workshop approached imagination as a form of agency. The children could examine existing technologies and then propose systems grounded in their own knowledge and priorities.
Process
The workshop took place as a self-directed circuit for children aged 8 to 12.
Drawings, recordings, mappings, conversations, and speculative devices formed part of the research process and the final body of work.
