Growth, Decay and Becoming: Insights from Transformation Design and Bioart

Transformation design seeks to foster societal change by questioning power structures and placing ecological considerations central to systemic change. The concept of transformation is based on adaptation, resilience and change. In addition, theories of adaptive change are based on finding an equilibrium between shifting forces through the stability and strength of a given system. A resilient system must reflect dynamic adaptability to create and maintain novelty and persistence despite its vulnerability. Transformation design sets out to instigate and evaluate large-scale desirable societal change by ensuring safe and just transformational processes. Set in a transformative design framework, this paper will explore theories of change in creative bioart experiments to analyse process flows and tipping points in growth, demise, and becoming. Stemming from a bioart experiment, the results of this study will propose a framework for designers to employ mapping tools to identify needs for transformative change within society.