I think it’s also important to have a diversity of aesthetics and cultural representations to gain a more universal appeal - and also that diversity needs to be understood very broadly. Movements like this seem to typecast themselves relatively quickly, as there are few role models available and people adopt an aesthetic, or mannerisms, or jargon as a sort of identifier that they belong to the group, which ends up being just as exclusionary as it is a marker of inclusion.
There will always be people who see the extreme version as wildly inspiring, and those who see it as ugly or frightening or wildly unrealistic. Ex: earthships - personally I think it’s awesome to have a self-sufficient space with indoor gardens, but they are huge and ugly af. But people renovating and retrofitting their century old houses with natural materials and respect for the original architecture? Yes please.
I guess I’m trying to say that the fantastic needs to have a place under the umbrella alongside the pragmatic, and the vegans alongside the people with turkeys in their backyard, and the DIY permies alongside people who would never ever use an old bathtub as a planter but are willing to xeriscape their front lawn with native perennials, and the people who make their own sandals out of bicycle tubes alongside the people who buy really expensive shoes for life etc etc.
I think it’s also important to have a diversity of aesthetics and cultural representations to gain a more universal appeal - and also that diversity needs to be understood very broadly. Movements like this seem to typecast themselves relatively quickly, as there are few role models available and people adopt an aesthetic, or mannerisms, or jargon as a sort of identifier that they belong to the group, which ends up being just as exclusionary as it is a marker of inclusion.
There will always be people who see the extreme version as wildly inspiring, and those who see it as ugly or frightening or wildly unrealistic. Ex: earthships - personally I think it’s awesome to have a self-sufficient space with indoor gardens, but they are huge and ugly af. But people renovating and retrofitting their century old houses with natural materials and respect for the original architecture? Yes please.
I guess I’m trying to say that the fantastic needs to have a place under the umbrella alongside the pragmatic, and the vegans alongside the people with turkeys in their backyard, and the DIY permies alongside people who would never ever use an old bathtub as a planter but are willing to xeriscape their front lawn with native perennials, and the people who make their own sandals out of bicycle tubes alongside the people who buy really expensive shoes for life etc etc.