TITLE:
A Manifesto for Rust
CONTEXT:
Sustainability & Design
ROLE:
DESIGNER STORYTELLER EDITOR
EXPERTISE AREAS:
USER & SOCIETY
CREATIVITY & AESTHETICS
TECHNOLOGY & REALIZATION
MATERIALS:
Rust, A Sense of Loneliness
Rust is a manifesto for forgotten public art, a call to dignity for installations that have outlived their cultural spotlight. It centers around the installations left behind after events like GLOW, giving them fictional voices to express their right to be remembered, to age, to decay, and eventually to return to the earth. These "voices" form a poetic, rights-based framework that redefines value not in visibility or novelty, but in endurance, quiet presence, and emotional resonance.
This project is deeply rooted in User & Society, as it critiques the way modern design practices cater to fleeting attention, short-term trends, and consumer entitlement. It raises questions such as: Who are we designing for, and why? The statues serve as a metaphor for how we discard not only objects, but also meaning, history, and responsibility. By looking at these installations through the lens of personification, Rust shifts the design conversation toward community memory, public interaction, and more-than-human perspectives.
At the same time, Rust is an example of Creativity & Aesthetics as resistance. Instead of sleek, optimized forms, it embraces rust, wear, and entropy as aesthetic choices honest records of time and context. It uses storytelling, symbolism, and a tone of poetic melancholy to suggest that beauty does not need to be preserved it can evolve, erode, and still hold power. In this way, Rust invites designers to imagine futures that are not just green or circular, but emotionally and culturally sustainable.