Growing Objects

For millennia humans have used the different species of cucurbita, a genus of herbaceous fruits in the gourd family, not only to feed people; we have also used them as bottles, food containers, hats, lanterns, dolls, musical instruments and much more. Herein lies the most fascinating and significant natural history of the gourd: it was the first plant cultivated in the world to be used as a container. And this fact radically altered our perception of the natural world.

For the first time in history, humans were not growing a food, but an object.

In many African legends, the gourd is presented as a vessel for knowledge and wisdom. Cucurbita trilobulata is a new hybrid lamp, a growing object to rethink the way we design and build our environment:

To recover local wisdom and indigenous innovation.
To work sustainably with complex ecosystems.
To erase the boundaries that exist between humans and nature.
To save natural spaces that would otherwise disappear...

We need to cultivate objects.

Dreaming about Trilobites

Trilobites are marine arthropods that flourished throughout the lower Paleozoic. After surviving two mass extinctions they went into a long decline that led to their disappearance in the third mass extinction at the end of the Permian period, about 252 million years ago. Trilobites were among the most successful of all early animals, existing in oceans for almost 300 million years, with over 22,000 species having been described.

Inspired by this prodigious organism, SUGAAR STUDIO has created Cucurbita trilobulata, a lamp to draw attention to the prelude to the sixth mass extinction on our planet. During the past 100–200 years, biodiversity loss and species extinction have accelerated, to the point that most conservation biologists now believe that human activity has either produced a period of mass extinction, or is on the cusp of doing so.

A 2022 study published in Science Advances states that «the planet has entered the sixth mass extinction» and warns that current anthropogenic trends, particularly regarding climate and land-use changes, could result in the loss of more than a tenth of plant and animal species by the end of the century. Deforestation, overfishing, ocean acidification, the destruction of wetlands, and the decline in amphibian populations, among others, are a few broader examples of global biodiversity loss.

Trilobites remind us that if we do not course correct, we will continue to lose life-sustaining biodiversity at an alarming rate. Trilobites are not failures, but extraordinary, resilient organisms that can promote creativity, build fascinating and memorable new narratives, and drive belonging to a world that is evolving toward ever greater diversity, elegance, beauty, interrelationship and self-awareness.

Pumpkins and Trilobites

Creativity is a combinatorial force — it thrives on cross-pollinating existing ideas, often across divergent disciplines and sensibilities, and combining them into something original and new. What do pumpkins and trilobites have in common?

The ability to link the seemingly unlinkable is the scaffolding that allows the construction of any meaningful thought. Connecting ideas is the fundamental creative act in innovation.