11/02/2024 01:44:11 PM 
Stephanie Smith looks at first glance like an intrepid pioneer who's making the best out of the worst and using the current economic situation as a chance to get off-the-grid, into a desert shack and back to learning about the fundamentals of life.
However, she's more than qualified to report back.
"Smith was trained at Harvard under Rem Koolhaas and she was project leader of Koolhaas’s Harvard Project on the City in its first year. Her essay, “To Get Rich is Glorious,” about the transformation of China from a local to a global economy, then back again, was published by Taschen in ‘Great Leap Forward’ and was included in the international art fair documenta X. According to one critic, “Stephanie Smith’s diary of encountering the people and customs of the new, development-crazed Dongguan City in southern China, offers the compelling and evocative observation of a first-class novel.“
At the moment she's restricting her "un-plugged" reporting to a few image pages on Tumblr, called the Unplugged Diary.
In some ways, she's harking back to the days of the early 70s when the oil crisis forced many to consider the off the grid lifestyle.
Interestingly, it's something that you would expect to be seeing more of as all the same elements exist now, as existed back then.
I think Smith is very much ahead of the curve, she's seeing a potential future where survival techniques and sustainable living are going to matter.
Let's hope she reports back in detail, so we can all learn something.
Via John Thackara
Posted by Ed Cotton
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