FERAL WOOL. Designing with a vibrant matter with care and cosmoecological perspective in times of troubled abundance

Abstract

Feral Wool is an ongoing research-through-design project that takes place in the South Tyrol region in Italy. It explores the concept of overflowing and overlooked local wool that becomes a troubled abundance due to the global dynamics of the “Capitalocene”. By calling wool "feral” as an entry point, we highlight the abandonment of a precious matter while regenerating narratives of plural cosmo-ecologies. Through design, the project traces invisible and neglected stakeholders to open up space for new alliances to imagine alternative futures of local wool. Our article poses the following questions: What other cosmologies need to be considered to bind interspecies relations and foster care? What other new aesthetics of wool need to be discovered as a “matter of care” and relationality? We address these questions by unfolding research insights into new care practices and processes while also representing a visualisation of wool cosmology which will serve as a basis for multispecies dreaming for wool futures.