Adam Zeiner

What I've come to recognise as core to my practice is the challenge of taking an extraordinarily complex, integrated, incomplete problem and wrapping my arms around it conceptually in a way that helps and empowers practitioners to actually do things about it.

I worry sometimes that there’s a danger of embracing the theatre of systems thinking — using it to position services and to navigate what’s desirable, feasible and viable within the existing system — without actually reshaping the system itself.

First off, we need to stop thinking about systems maps as deliverables. They’re research tools — stepping stones on our path to understanding complex problems.

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We started thinking about different kinds of subject and object engagements that involved maybe multiple subjects, multiple objects, unintended engagements, or engagements that happen without either the user or the artifact having awareness of that engagement. What are the different permutations that are possible?

If you’re part of the map-building process there’s no better tool for organizing your team’s research and keeping everyone on the same page. [...] However… I f you’re not part of the map-building process, systems maps can be exhausting to interpret.

If the goal is to bend the curves, we need to know where to start. To this end, we identified three realms of leverage that can be taken as starting points – reconnecting people with nature, restructuring institutions, and rethinking how different types of knowledge should be brought to bear for the pursuit of sustainability.