Then: 10/18/2024

Charred Wood

a Multidisciplinary research creation exploring the stories and possibilities of charred wood

Research goal: Re-framing and regenerating materials by understanding our relationships with the land, material, and ecological narratives within communities. Project Summary: Charred Wood is a multidisciplinary project led by Material Matters, Emily Carr University, involving designers, artists, scientists, and the community who are responding to climate change. The project’s research activities and material outcomes will provide insights and understanding of forest fire impacts on materials and the community. Material Matters affiliated faculty, students, artists and designers, and community stakeholders are reconsidering charred wood working through research creation adjacent to the expertise of scientists.

‘Charred Wood’ research is situated within two themes: Material and Communities.

Material: Designers, artists, Indigenous knowledge keepers, and scientists are working together to address our evolving relationships with woodchar and the land. This is an opportunity for knowledge creation in our respective disciplines: Community Elders providing wisdom, knowledge, and direction, scientists researching possibilities of reconstituting charred wood for new print mediums; artists and designers researching the new applications through iterative prototyping and print tests.

Communities: Our collective narratives, connections, and concerns, The Boothroyd Band, artists and designers at Emily Carr, and scientists at UBC will engage through workshops and assembly as a community for mutually beneficial knowledge exchange and understanding. Designers and artists will work to regenerate charred wood material into new forms and formulations and will be further responding to stories shared and collected through the production of creative, expressive, and cultural outcomes.

MM research Team: Helene Day Fraser, Keith Doyle, Aaron Oussoren

MM RA’s: Shayla M Giroux, Naga Lakshmi Sreya, Connor Simpson, Eden Eisses, Shelly Kositsky, Luke Dunn, Ophir Barzilay, Jose Kuribrena

Project partners: Chief Mike Campbell, The Boothroyd Band; Dr Orlando Rojas, Scientific Director, UBC BioProducts Institute (BPI); Dr Xiaotao (Tony) Bi, Director, UBC Clean Energy Research Centre (CERC)