Plastic: Villain or Hero. Getting to know Méndez+Eguiza Team!
Project: MicrO
Méndez+Eguiza: Nicole Eguiza and Paulina Méndez
Andrea: Which was your motivation for the concept of your project?
Méndez+Eguiza: During our research, we found that every week humans consume the equivalent of a credit card in microplastics and scientists are not completely aware of its effect on our bodies. This lack of information was concerning for us, because it also became clear that the use of personal protective equipment will surely increase the levels of plastics in our ecosystems, therefore we are on the verge of an alarming increase of microplastics in our body. Basically, as we try to protect ourselves from one pandemic, we may be heading into another one.
Andrea: Why did you decide to have this approach?
Méndez+Eguiza: We got to the conclusion that consumption of microplastics is inevitable, and from now on we need to figure out a way to control its effects on our system rather than try to avoid its ingestion. Our research showed that it’s almost impossible to eradicate plastics from our environment and our food, but we found enough information that suggested that we can develop new technology to keep track of how much plastic we ingest. Also, the lack of research about its health consequences showed us an opportunity to innovate.
Andrea: Which were your main inspirations?
Méndez+Eguiza: We got in touch with a doctor to ask about the possible consequences of microplastics in our bodies, and he explained to us that we are most likely to develop chronic diseases, like diabetes. From there on, we focused on devices that are used to measure a certain level of something in our bodies, like glucose, ketones, allergies, drugs or systems used to measure the level of something in our food, like spectrometers.
Andrea: What would you want the audience to reflect because of your project?
Méndez+Eguiza: We wanted to make a call for health institutions to make a deep research on the effects of microplastics on our health and how we may control them. As well as to encourage everyone to be more conscious about the disposal of PPE, since its wrong disposal is increasing the levels of environmental pollution. This concept works like a cautionary tale, warning us from possible new diseases and how they may change our daily life.
Andrea: Do you think something like this could become true in the future? Or does it already exist something similar?
Méndez+Eguiza: There are devices made for chronic diseases, which leads us to believe that the production of a device similar to MicrO, to track our levels of microplastics, is completely possible and necessary. It was important for us to reach a feasible solution that people could easily visualize, this is why we also took into consideration current trends and technologies.
Andrea: How do you think speculative design helps to tackle environmental and social issues?
Méndez+Eguiza: We think that speculative design is a tool to project today’s facts into tomorrow’s reality, whether they are positive or negative. This allows us to take action, create consciousness and reveal issues that sometimes are not visible to us in the present.
Andrea: What do you think is your role as a designer of the future?
Méndez+Eguiza: We think it is our responsibility to create feasible and sustained scenarios, based on real issues and real information. But above all, it is our duty to present these futures in a way that is easy to grasp and audiences will relate to, in order to motivate them to take action on the issue.
Andrea: Which are going to be your next steps for your project or for you as a designer?
Méndez+Eguiza: We want to find platforms to promote the project and the many issues surrounding microplastics, as well as explore new possible solutions, alongside other disciplines, to further enrich the project and generate new initiatives and research around this topic. We also hope to develop more speculative and critical design projects as a team.
If you want to know more about their work you can con follow them at @nic.eguiza and @pau_meva.