Life on Mars, from a kid's perspective

As part of the program for the speculative design exhibition The Age of...? we arranged workshops with kids on the theme of space and Mars. Funding from Sparbanksstiftelsen Skåne & Swedbank made it possible to engage återSKAPA to run four workshops for over 50 kids from Grade 4.

återSKAPA is a creative reuse, design, and education center working with playful design processes to expand subject knowledge, increase environmental awareness and stimulate creativity, initiative and ingenuity. återSKAPA don’t see waste material as garbage, but treat it as an opportunity for creation, communication and education.

Between September 10-12th, 2019, återSKAPA brought their mobile material bank, full to the rafters of discarded industrial waste to Form/Design Center where the workshops where held. Inspired by design studio Wang & Söderström’s contribution in the exhibition, the workshops started by talking about extremophiles (= bacteria living under extreme conditions) and that NASA has found four different variants that could survive on Mars. The first one can handle radioactivity, the second one can live in rock, the third one lives on only carbon dioxide and hydrogen and the fourth one lives in both super hot and super cold water. With inspiration from återSKAPA’s DIY magnifications of bacteria in flat plastic lab bowls, the children created their own life forms on Mars. The kids agreed on that living on Mars will be difficult and that it would be smarter to save and share Earth's resources instead and try to live better with nature. Thank you for your thoughts and inspiration, it gives us hope for a bright future!