"You really need to think about it holistically. We've disconnected ourselves from the living world, and we have this beautiful quotation from David Orr, he's an environmentalist and teacher, and he said, 'Can we imagine education that doesn't dominate nature?' And I think, the jury is out. We have to actually reconceive it. We have to think about a living world that we're part of. And [through my work at the McEwen school] I discovered that the Indigenous folks have a different cosmology. They don't put humans at the center. They put life at the center, and one of the guys said, 'We think that we are related to the rocks and the grasses,' which is actually what E.O. Wilson said, 'Rock is slow life, and life is fast rock.' So here you have the greatest life scientist in the last half-century saying the same thing as the Indigenous cosmologist. When I realized that I thought–Wow, this is just an incredible, incredible situation that you have science and spirituality coming to the same place.”

Designer, author, educator and artist Bruce Mau is a brilliantly creative optimist whose love of thorny problems led him to create a methodology for life-centered design. Across thirty years of design innovation, he’s collaborated with global brands and companies, leading organizations, heads of state, renowned artists and fellow optimists. Mau became an international figure with the publication of his landmark S,M,L,XL, designed and co-authored with Rem Koolhaas, and his most recent books are Mau MC24: Bruce Mau’s 24 Principles for Designing Massive Change in Your Life and Work and, with co-author, Julio Ottino, dean of Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering, The Nexus: Augmented Thinking for a Complex World – The New Convergence of Art, Technology, and Science. Mau is co-founder and CEO of Massive Change Network, a holistic design collective based in the Chicago area.

www.massivechangenetwork.com

www.Brucemaustudio.com

Mau MC24

The Nexus

Image Courtesy of Massive Change Network

www.creativeprocess.info

www.oneplanetpodcast.org