Blog Reflection 1
In a digitally driven, extremely fast paced educational environment, Kate Fletcher’s lecture on Nature seemed to have a profound and lasting impact on me. And it led me to question; has the idea to just sit back, observe, reconnect and ground yourself really become so foreign? The lecture on Nature seemed to be an exploration around that very question.
In the first few moments of the lecture, Kate commanded everyone to “free write about nature” for one minute. And after ten seconds of breaking free of any inhibitions and self-consciousness, a natural stream of words began to flow. And the words were raw, and real because they were connected to me, without any barriers created by cultural norms. In my opinion, the definition of nature was, in an almost literal sense, within this exercise. Nature is a space free of societal critiques and censors – nature is one’s freedom to express their thoughts without interruption. Perhaps this is not exactly what the exercise aimed to do, but in those sixty seconds this is what it invoked within my mind.
Another component of the lecture on Nature which piqued my interest was the story of the stone statues on Easter Island. The statues were beautifully crafted on a remote island without any form of technology to help the process. But the trees cut down in order to facilitate these statues negatively impacted the quality of the soil, which in turn led to the downfall of the entire island and its population. This can be used as a euphemism for society today, a sign that society as a whole need to slow down, that impressive technology could be advancing, but it is at the expense of nature.
I found myself applying this to the fast-paced industry of fashion, where sustainability is a campaign tag-line and nature is all but forgotten in the midst of high production fashion weeks and glamourous fashion shows. In my opinion this lecture was reminding us that although it’s easy to get lost in the beauty of freshly appliqued garments and ground-breaking technology, it is nature which keeps us grounded and connected with reality.
Conclusively, I feel like in the midst of lockdown during COVID-19, the lecture on nature feels extremely relevant, both personally for me as well as on a global scale. During these unfortunate times, I’ve found myself noticing the way the birds chirp and how the grass smells and it has grounded me and taught me to slow down. The fashion industry itself has also begun to show signs of reflecting this idea, with industry giant YSL being the first high fashion heavyweight to take itself off the fashion week calendar in order to ‘take control of its pace.’ And this is what I think we all need to do – stop, breath, connect and take control of our pace. I believe it will give us the same feeling of uninhibited freedom as the one-minute writing exercise right at the beginning of the Nature lecture did.