John Marshall: Place by Design Finalist at SXSW Eco 2016

Stamps MDes Program Director and Associate Professor John Marshall’s studio rootoftwo are finalists in SXSW Eco’s Place by Design competition. Place by Design celebrates innovative design work that transforms our everyday surroundings and creates positive social and environmental impact.

rootoftwo’s project Whithervanes are headless chicken weathervanes that respond to news-related fear on the Internet. The Whithervanes were commissioned for the 2014 Folkestone Triennial. Two Whithervanes were subsequently acquired for the permanent collection of Folkestone Artworks.

rootoftwo will pitch their project to the Place by Design Jury at SXSW Eco, October 10 – 12, 2016 at the Austin Convention Center. SXSW Eco creates a space for business leaders, policy makers, innovators and designers to advance solutions that drive social, economic and environmental change.

A short film about Whithervanes by Anna McNay and Martin Kennedy of Studio International is currently included in the Neo-Nomad Project, an initiative of SAPAR Contemporary Incubator, New York curated by Basak Senova. The exhibition will tour to Hong Kong, Stockholm, Istanbul, Vancouver, and London.

Whithervanes will have its US première in Miami with Locust Projects in 2017. The project will install three Whithervanes in Miami neighborhoods. rootoftwo have also received support from the Knight Foundation to develop an open-source hardware kit based on the Whithervanes.