About
Plants Don't Care About Borders
Desen: A digital platform exploring migration through nature motifs
Istanbul has always been a crossroads, a catalyst, and a hub for movement; especially for people, plants, and crafts. It's a city shaped by migration, hybridity, and transformation. Today, it holds tension: with a record number of migrants navigate a transitory purgatory, disconnected from land and uncertain of future, while locals watch the city change beyond recognition.
We created a digital tool to engage with this moment. Desen means "pattern" in Turkish. In the phrase desen desen insanlar, it also means "all kinds of people." Operated through AI, it allows users to design personalized patterns using traditional motifs and cultural styles—infused with their own memories and imagery. Desen offers a way to reconnect with heritage, make space for this transitory present, and imagine new forms of belonging.
Desen creates a visual and narrated story of movement, connecting geographic, social, and creative threads. Motifs like the tulip, pomegranate, and carnation have crossed empires and centuries—reimagined by palace artisans, village craftspeople, and political resistance movements. The tulip alone has traveled through over 75 countries, causing economic crises, inspiring poetry, and surviving exile. It does not care about borders. People, by contrast, often face restrictions, disconnection, and displacement.
Plants move freely. People often cannot.
Desen explores this contradiction: Why do we welcome the movement of ecology and craft, but not the carriers of it? Why is there resistance to seeing our shared threads?
Through Desen, these patterns become a living archive that users can contribute to and reimagine as:
- • Visual carriers of memory and resilience
- • Acts of cultural agency and resistance
- • Tools for reclaiming craft and identity
- • Bridges between heritage and contemporary experience
A speculative design approach
We designed Desen as a speculative and participatory ritual of memory and imagination.
Speculative design uses imagination and storytelling to ask "What if?" and open new perspectives on urgent cultural issues. Rather than solving problems, it provokes thought and feeling about possible and impossible futures.
What if patterns could become vessels of memory—emotional archives that help us imagine new forms of belonging across borders?
What if technology were not extractive or alienating, but a bridge that carries traditions into the future without erasing them and technology is not only a tool but a cultural mediator?
What if AI could become a co-creator of culture, weaving together human memory and digital imagination?
What if the historical role of craft practitioners in sustaining traditions could actively shape the technologies of tomorrow?
How it works
The app works as a step-by-step journey:
1. Users first choose a botanical motif—like tulip, rose, or pomegranate—that has traveled across borders and histories.
2. Next, they select a style—ranging from embroidery and kilim to cyberpunk or surrealism—that fuses traditional and contemporary aesthetics.
3. They then upload a personal image, which influences the mood and colors of the pattern, and share a short story about home, migration, and the emotions they want it to hold.
4. Finally, the AI weaves these elements together into a unique pattern and narrative, which becomes part of a collective gallery.
Its process aims at users agency to inscribe their identities into a wider story of belonging.
Who are we?
Lama Hasan
is a landscape architect, researcher, and educator working across ecological restoration, public space, and heritage storytelling. She leads Baladi Creative, a platform exploring how design can support healing in contexts of displacement. Lama teaches at City College New York, and her work has been supported by AADK Spain and Gate 27 Istanbul.
For more information: www.baladicreativellc.com
Anna Rebecca Unterholzner (PhD)
is a transdisciplinary artist, designer, researcher, and lecturer working at the intersection of immersive systems, interactive media, and human-centered design. Her practice explores how affect, embodiment, and narrative shape emotional experiences through technology. She teaches at different universities in Portugal and Germany.
For more information: www.aarruu.com
This project was developed during our joint residency at Gate 27 in 2025.
This text was translated using AI. We apologize for any possible inaccuracies. We're working on expanding language support in the future. This is just a prototype for now.
©August2025