superFUTURES

Developed within the superFUTURES platform led by Gem Barton, this collaborative project explored speculative and critical design as a method of spatialising futures. The brief invited students to respond to a set of three randomly assigned words — in our case, introvert, ziplock bag, and farm — to construct a design fiction that projects possible futures and addresses emerging social, spatial, or ecological insecurities.

Working in a team with Eunice Wan and Jo Lockwood, we created Touch Grass, a satirical short film produced under the fictional brand J(o)KE Productions. The work envisions Hello Fresh Air — a premium weekly subscription service that delivers bottled countryside air to urban residents in polluted cities. This tongue-in-cheek commentary on environmental degradation and consumer culture reflects on a near future where even the most basic human needs become commercialised luxuries.

Filmed on iPhone 15 Pro and edited using Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects, the project was shot across Hyde Park and the Royal College of Art, Kensington Campus. Blending advertising aesthetics with speculative critique, the film parodies direct-to-consumer branding while exposing the absurdity of capitalist responses to climate crisis.

By rehearsing the not-yet, Touch Grass positions design as a reflective and critical practice — one that questions the politics of survival, privilege, and adaptation in the face of environmental collapse.