Unlocking Wildness: In the traces of Edisoniana's Tale

Unlocking wildness aims not just to provide a hybrid habitat that is facilitated by a system of technological devices, but to rethink what it means to reclaim nature and ecosystems that were taken away for human development. The project digs into the understanding of the contradiction of how people in power that were leading the car industry and urban development were once related with desires of experiencing wildness. Initially, in the 1900s Henry Ford along with Henry Firestone and Thomas Edison, claimed that the cars were a facilitator to get people out in nature, and by doing so they needed to find a domestic source of rubber to produce tires for automobiles. This led to massive research that ended with the hybridization of a national species, Goldenrod, that today are considered invasive species. Considering this, the project tackles 3 main questions: What would it mean today to cohabitate with nature when our cities are ecologically collapsing? And when our relationship with it wouldn’t be for our own profit? What does it mean to hybridize a species for human benefit? By liberating the hybridized Edisoniana, a Goldenrod species named after Thomas Edison, Unlocking Wildness aims to undo the effects of the car industry by creating a scenario that provides conditions to increase non- human habitat in the city. It acclimatizes important pollinator species in threat of extinction, to increase biodiversity in Manhattan and beyond, reduce the heating effect and suggest other forms of cohabitation with and in (invasive) natures. Pabla Amigo - Gabriela Junqueira Franco