VERDADE/MENTIRA

While reading the text, the phrase "There is a concern that political ecology could remain a marginalized and neglected problem" saddened and frightened me greatly, because for me the issue of climate change is the first thought before doing anything. In the sense of the text, I do care about climate change to maintain, continue, and repair our world, and in my own small way, I do what is within my power to not worsen the situation. So, the text caught my attention a lot - it's clear that it struck me deeply - but I struggled to bring it to life as a prototype.

I thought of bringing a simple but nice sweatshirt from my closet, neatly folded, and placed it there on display, waiting for my colleagues to reflect on the meaning it could have, discovering the brand, where it was made, the material, the price, etc... The goal was to lead my colleagues to draw conclusions for or against the garment and fashion in general, and then connect them to the topics discussed in the text, such as the liveliness, politics, and respect of the things, on the hypocrisy (in this specific case of the fashion system - beautiful on the outside, but ugly on the inside), to draw their attention to the work behind it and the inevitable effects it has.

This prototype didn't fully convince me, because it narrowed the field too much; so, rereading and jotting down the parts of the text that interested me most, I decided to add an elaboration on the discourse of interdependence among the inhabitants of the earth, opposed to the apparent 'independence'.

The metaphor of the puzzle came to mind because it illustrates the concept that the puzzle only acquires meaning when all the pieces are correctly positioned, while individual pieces have no apparent value or utility.

Then I thought of writing provocative questions on the back of the puzzle, to ensure that my colleagues thought about the work behind it (in this case, mine, having previously completed the puzzle, thought about what to write and rearranged it).

But all this seemed too descriptive to me, it would have taken away the 'magic' of the message. So, I reasoned that the puzzle pieces to be assembled are inside a box with the reference picture. Drawing a parallel with the initial idea of the sweatshirt, the photo on the box would be the finished, perfect garment, while the action of assembling the puzzle would be the entire process behind the garment, just as the hypocritical world of fashion (and beyond) only shows the beauty, hiding the negative aspects.

So, I decided to bring the provocation of an empty puzzle box (https://youtu.be/Va_KgjypqX8).