Dr. Maggie Buxton is the Director and Founder of AwhiWorld, an independent transdisciplinary lab and social enterprise based in Northland, New Zealand.
She holds a transdisciplinary PhD from AUT-Colab and an MSc in Organisational Development from Sheffield Business School. Maggie’s work blends emerging technologies with social change, focusing on AI, environmental activism, and creative practices. AwhiWorld explores the intersections of art, technology, and spirituality, building global partnerships from her isolated regional base to address complex challenges like climate change. Through installations, labs, and publications, she aims to foster collaboration and innovation across disciplines.
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Entrevista completa
1. Can you tell us about yourself and your background? What brought you to the projects you are working on today?
I have been working for thirty years in systemic work around the world. This has included working with eco-village communities in West Africa spiritual enterprises in North East Scotland, Asian climate change initiatives, and large political institutions and corporations across Europe. For the first part of my career, I worked creatively but within a mainstream setting, not overtly using creative or emerging technologies, tools, or ideas. I was innovative but within the confines of social change work or corporate developmental activities.
My transition to working more innovatively began when I collaborated with an experimental arts group in Brussels called Foam (fo.am). They encouraged me to merge my mainstream work with practices that generated new realities across many different disciplines and practices. That experience inspired me to change my life and incorporate previously unused or hidden elements of interest and practice. I realised that this was a gift meant to be shared. I saw that I could inspire others to step out of their perceived limitations and be their fullest selves in service to the planet. After completing my PhD, I formed AwhiWorld.
For the last 20 years, I have entirely interwoven my developmental work with a transdisciplinary practice, incorporating emerging technologies such as IoT and augmented reality. This has involved installations, labs, publications (including podcasts), and large-scale, multi-site developmental events and experiences. I have done much of this with my husband Kim Newall, a professional creative technologist and multimedia performance artist.
2. Why is transdisciplinarity so important to you? What is your motivation behind that? What kind of solutions do you think this can bring to our complex world?
Since childhood, I’ve understood the world from a transdisciplinary perspective. However, as I mentioned earlier, I operated within a narrow version of this for the first ten years of my career. To me, a transdisciplinary approach means a world without silos, where there is an integrative, interconnected, multidimensional way of viewing reality. This approach opens up greater possibilities and expands consciousness, particularly when it includes understanding issues around rank, power, and colonisation—dynamics that often prevent us from engaging across boundaries.
A lot of the workshops, events, and labs I’ve run embed awareness of group or system dynamics, so that participants come away with new languages and structures to make better sense of their world.
3. You are working in multiple fields and projects. What are your three most important initiatives and why?
The first is our Strange Intelligences Project, which involves interviews, public labs, publications, and workshops. This multifaceted program explores organic, synthetic, etheric, and other intelligences and how they relate to each other. Innovation happens in the space between these aspects. We are particularly interested in the impact of artificial intelligence on society and are researching mindsets around plants and plant ethics.
The second is our Tasman Threads project, a collaboration between Tree Create Studio in Bribie Island, Queensland, and AwhiWorld. We are researching how to collaborate hyper-locally, place to place. Our current focus is on the liminal zone of mangrove marine reserves. Dr Tracey Benson (TreeCreate Director) and I are both interested in this plant’s environmentally and culturally contentious nature, as we each live near marine reserves. We use AR and 3D printing tools to exchange and re-place objects while documenting creative and scientific work on our sites.
The third main initiative is the development of our organisation itself. Building partnerships and collaborations globally is critical to our strategy, particularly as climate change increasingly impacts us. While extreme weather events may physically isolate us, we aim to stay connected to a global network of practice and knowledge. Interviews like this are key for reaching out and generating potential collaborations.
All of our projects have led to various outcomes. For instance, the Strange Intelligences Lab has engaged several hundred people (including organisational leaders) in building their AI literacy and general awareness. We are now working to bring this awareness to creative groups worldwide, particularly grassroots groups, helping them develop basic safety protocols and a critical approach to engaging with AI. And our project with Tree Create and others around the world shows that physical isolation does not necessarily mean creative isolation.
4. And if you would have the opportunity to mention another project? Something different, truly experimental, something you wonder if could work, but where you are also investing energy or would like to put your hope, what would that be?
We are researching several AI-related projects, and much of our energy is focused on AI activism, resilience, and adaptation awareness in relation to the climate crisis. As part of our global outreach program, we intend to have conversations with people worldwide to learn how they work in these areas to support their communities. We aim to strengthen the web of transdisciplinary practitioners worldwide, helping us all better navigate disruptive times. At the same time, we see potential in using AI to expand skill sets and make people more productive in areas where they may have struggled before, such as creating music, movies, or images without formal training or writing when they face barriers to it.
5. What is Awhiworld?
AwhiWorld is a transdisciplinary lab that explores the intersections of art, technology, nature, and spirituality. We are involved in research and projects spanning diverse fields like AI, environmental activism, and creative practices. AwhiWorld supports a «space between ideas, practices, and things» to foster a shift in consciousness and create positive change. We are also focused on building global connections and collaborations, particularly as we face challenges such as climate change.
6. Why do you consider art relevant when considering the challenges the human species faces today?
For us, it’s not just about art practices or creativity. It’s about the relevance of different mindsets coming together and learning from each other’s points of view. This may involve fine artists, natural and social scientists, cultural experts, spiritual practitioners, philosophers, activists, technologists, and caregivers. The challenges we face are systemic, so our practice focuses on the spaces between disciplines and mindsets rather than the mindsets themselves. Engaging creatively is often from a place of disruption and subversion, encouraging lateral rather than linear thinking.
7. What does artificial Intelligence mean for your vision of the future?
We are deeply concerned that artificial intelligence is quietly creating a revolution at every level of society, and many people, including social change organisations, are avoiding engaging with it. At AwhiWorld, we believe the next few years will significantly change daily life in most societies and cultures. While AI has some strong plus points in some areas (like health), it poses significant risks for vulnerable parts of society, including data harvesting, surveillance, and job displacement. Recognising and responding to these issues is essential for our survival and grasp on reality, particularly as the climate crisis becomes more impactful around the planet and wars and negative economic impacts spin out of this context.
8. And thinking about the future, what is your dream project? What idea drives you, and what do you see as your contribution to making this world a little bit better for all of us?
I would love for AwhiWorld and our network to inspire others to step outside their boxes and experiment. Open (for those who are open to it) minds and hearts to other belief systems and ways of knowing and being in the world. Too many people are walking through their lives disconnected, not realising the richness of what’s possible. This is especially true for those with significant privileges who are not using them to better the lives of others. From 2025 onwards, I want to build on what we’ve done to help those people wake up and use their privilege for positive change.
Entrevista realizada el 14 de octubre 2024.
Preguntas en inglés preparadas por: Ricardo Dal Farra
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