Project by Sarah Salins
Degrowth entails the downscaling of material and energy throughput of high-income societies in order to mitigate the metabolic rift between geographies of capital accumulation and the vast territories and populations whose resources they unsustainably consume. It calls for a convergence between “imperial modes of living” and regimes of structural scarcity, and for the need to lower total global energy consumption while reducing gradients of inequality.”
To degrow the shorelines of Manhattan, the act of weaving reeds becomes an act of autonomy. Restoring the shorelines to protective marshes through time and active degradation, the grounds will return to the marshes they once were to act as a preventative flood plane. In using reeds to weave structures meant to infill over time, people take agency over what they need, and spaces become erected through an act of community - spaces that grow and degrow over time.
