Tellings of the Pacific Ocean: A Landscape-based Approach for Multispecies Design and HCI

Environmental disturbances induced by climate change have caused significant changes in our ecosystems and are threatening the health of our environments. As a response to this issue, a growing body of work has emerged in HCI and design, which seeks to foreground more-than-human stories in support of making more sustainable and just futures. This research contributes to this broad agenda by probing graphic novels as a multispecies storytelling method for design and HCI. Combining ideas from Anna Tsing’s adventures of landscape and from HCI and design’s use of sequential art (e.g., storyboards), we use landscape as the main protagonist of the story and show how graphic novel features, such as the use of panels and the ability to represent different perspectives across times, scales and geographies, affords tellings of multispecies stories. Through a critical engagement with the creation of the graphic novel as a research process and product, we offer an approach to challenge the human-centeredness and solution-orientedness of designs and stories.