Picklism
Creating an ideology (ism) as a platform to create upon
Picklism is the act of transformation which results in preservation. The following work illustrates how we transform moments, places, objects, and even people in order to preserve them.
Picklism in architecture
Reconstruction of buildings is used all across London and is single-handedly responsible for the preservation of the looks of the city. Sites and buildings can be also preserved for years, once they transform their official statues from buildings to national heritage. This is how a city could be of officially pickled.
PICKLISM IN FASHION
PICKLISM IN DESIGN
Picklism expands lifespans, through giving value by transforming, which results in preservation.
This reduces waste. Used items won’t be seen as trash, but as things with potentials. The difference between this and up-cycling is that physical change is not needed to give things value. How the thing will be pickled and what it would be pickled into, is absolutely up to the picklist person. This is how picklism encourages craftsmanship and creativity, which turns the users into (re)designers. This will also result in the creation of unique objects, which mass production has killed.
JAR OF SOCIETY
Looking at a pickle-jar as the society, we saw the jar as the environment, the vinegar as the existing ideologies of that environment; the pickles as the people who are being formed by the vinegar of ideologies and their jar of environment; and the lid as a system, concept, government or a person, or perhaps the interest that keeps everything together.
PICKListic TOOLS
We made tools that made us more aware of our sub-conscious acts, with the hope to become more conscious in general.
These tools forced our actions to our conscious state of mind. We become more aware of the things we picked up, or the things we look at. We noticed when something was having an impact on us, as we could hear our heart rate changing due to encountering with something.
We became more aware of how we are formed and changed by our jar of vinegar and the ways in which it happens.
PICKLISM IN POLITICS
As picklism was dealing with awareness at this point. We decided to make our fellow uni-mates aware of how they have been pickled trough their student loan contract. We held a picklistic protest on the 2nd of December 2015, against George Osborne for freezing the student loans. We introduced funny/weird performance, art pieces and games that dragged people’s attention to come forward. Once people have gathered and gave us their attention, we could talk to them about the real issues. The trees were decorated with wooden pickles and two of us were vacuumed twice, and while in the bag, they gave a speech with a megaphone, of how it feels to be pickled. A game of pickle throwing was provided and laptops were available for people to sign our petition online. We reached out to about 200 people that day.
picklism in art
Picklistic Art
Mickey the (dead)Mouse
Visual Work
Pickled Guy, Pickled Gal
reflection
Picklism Goes to Hyde Park
To test the theories out and gain confidence about our ISM, we took it to the streets to hear the public’s opinion. My group-mate, David, walked from bond street station to Hyde Park while wearing the sandwich board. We went to the speaker’s corner on a Sunday. This made us think "what is picklism?", as at this point we really needed to know what we are saying. I talked with a variety of people (while wearing the board), including a priest, who invited me to his church to say all I have discussed with him.
Documentary 1 & 2
We created a documentary about Picklism, were we interviewed each other. We talked about what we had learn. This helped us to reflect on what we have done, why did we do what we have done, and what we would have done differently. This works as a form of diary now.
4 months later, we watched the first documentary and made another one. We discussed how picklism affected our design practices after the ISM project and how we had taken things further ever since. We plan to keep making them every 6 months as long as we are in touch...
summery
Picklism is the ideology, that speaks of preservation through transformation.
A survival technique, that was developed to rise up against starvation. The philosophy of looking at lifespans with a different perspective. A skill of giving things value and recognizing what makes something valuable. A set of behaviour and a way of thinking, that most likely generated from the nature of human beings, struggling and having problem with letting things go.
pickle process
Picklists
