A core tenant of transdisciplinary design is collectivism; co-creation and the ability to work as one unit leaving space for the work to determine where to move next. It is this framework for collaboration that inspired Judy Park Lee, the Design Research Director at the Public Policy Lab, and Lucas Vaqueiro, a Program Strategist at 3x3 and educator (MFA TD Class of 2022) as they developed their thesis project Cabinet of Bureaucratic Wonders in partnership with the National School of Public Administration in Brazil. A project that explored and merged their interests effectively, both noting that their previous experiences and ongoing practices as integral, providing a foundation for this new highly collaborative work.

In a post-graduation interview with Transdisciplinary Design Co-Director John Bruce the creative practitioners expanded on the concept of practice, holding space for emergence and finding pleasure in the process.

Giorgio Faedo, an alumnus of the Transdisciplinary Design program at Parsons School of Design, has explored these challenges and dynamics in his pursuit of a form of humanitarian photography that centers agency. Collaborating with colleagues and diverse communities across Africa, Faedo surveyed various ways in which documentarians and their subjects can work collaboratively. Humanitarian aid photography involves a range of people, roles, and functions, necessitating participation and co-creation. Faedo approached this complexity with a transdisciplinary mindset.

The film Dry Ground Burning (or Mato Seco em Chamas) (2022), co-directed by Adirley Queirós and Joana Pimenta, is a remarkable example of collective fabulation. It stands out for its unique blending of documentary and fictional narrative elements, creating a rich assemblage that challenges viewers to consider the authenticity of the story being told. Pimenta shared their filmmaking process during a visit to The New School's Transdisciplinary Design MFA program in the Fall semester of 2023.

In the process of preparing to host Lucian Castaing-Taylor at The New School, I read as much as I could about his body of work, particularly about the three pieces we were screening, De Humani Corporis Fabrica, Sheep Rushes, and Somniloquies. I read in effort to prepare myself, a curious non-cinephile, to engage with the work as well as to circulate materials to students whom I knew would be engaging as well. This is all to say that much has been written about Lucian’s work by film aficionados and ethnographers much more credible than me.

However, I am comforted (and perhaps even emboldened) to write this response to Lucian’s body of work by words he shared as he opened a GIDEST Seminar engaging with the work. Lucian, whose humility and at times borderline self-deprecation intrigued and surprised me, expressed in conversation that he was eager to hear the discussion, as he believes that a film is what it exists as in the mind of the viewer.

The World Ethic Forum (WEFo) hosted the first gathering of Firekeepers in 2022. The organization as described on their website "is an emerging ecology for a worldview of interconnectedness and interbeing as a proposition to other existing pathways. It is a platform and container to inquire collectively into the question of: 'How do we come to a new responsibility and life-affirming relationship with ourselves, each other, and the natural world?' The next seven years are designed as a transdisciplinary process to deepen relationships across perceived divides, cultivate practices and build individual and shared capacities, explore potential leverage points, and enable small and larger actions."

As part of WEFo's work to co-creatively evolve it's way of being, Erin Dixon and John Bruce reflect on their recent experience participating within the gathering of Firekeepers in August 2023, and the ongoing, unfolding potential of the organization.