How did Eggpicnic begin? Where did the name come from?

Chris and I met in Milan just over 10 years ago. He was doing his masters in product design and I was travelling. I was living with some friends that were moving back to Chile, so I had to find a new place to live. They left me the things they didn’t want to take back with them, including many boxes of eggs! Chris asked me to move in with him so I arrived at his door with all my bags and a basketful of eggs. Not wanting to let them go to waste, we boiled, scrambled and poached them and went on a picnic to Parco Sempione, where we decided to work together and merge our abilities in graphic and product design and our love for the natural world.

Chris has always had an interest in sustainability and I have always loved animals. When I was five I started my National Geographic and Zoo Book collection, I was in absolute awe of the world and wanted to know everything about it and I never grew out of that feeling.

We then moved to Chile, my hometown, and started doing a series of experiments in design and we had the opportunity to work with incredibly talented local artisans and we listened and learned about their relationship with the land. We immersed ourselves in colour, natural materials and sustainable processes and we understood that as designers we had an enormous responsibility.

As a design student, I loved reading books about Tibor Kalman, Barbara Kruger and Milton Glaser. I was incredibly inspired by how design could change people’s behaviour, ways of thinking and get people talking about the things that matter. We decided to do this from a position of hope by creating pieces that are relatable to everyone, starting fundamental conversations.

A few years later we moved to Sydney, where a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo landed on my balcony upon arrival. I was blown away as I had never experienced this type of interaction before, as it occurs in very few places on Earth, and I started drawing them and reading about Australian birdlife. A friend from Chile called me to say that her Chilean friend in Sydney needed help with his broken computer and asked if we could help him out. So on a rainy night, he arrived at our door on his bike and walked into an apartment covered in bird drawings and sculptures. He asked what I did: “I draw birds. And you?” - “I’m an ornithologist.”

We started going on outings together and he started teaching us about birds. We eventually joined the local bird club, Birding NSW. And the more we learned about the state of the environment in Australia the more worried we grew. We were very worried. And we knew these were the stories we had to tell. Everything we had learned until then we used as a base to grow and transform Eggpicnic into a platform in which we could offer high-end quality products while educating and directly supporting scientists and conservation programs.

How does the collaboration work?

We both have different skillsets and individual strengths as designers and our responsibilities are very clearly delineated, but at the same time having worked together for over a decade, we’re heavily in tune with each other’s work. We’ll conceive the projects together, and I’ll then take care of the illustration aspect, realising the preparatory work and drawings. Chris will piece the entire project together, managing every step from contracts to installations, takes care of our art toy productions and we share the task of designing flocks. We split the emails.

At this point in our partner in art and crime relationship, we can read each other’s minds. He’ll walk by and catch me staring at a drawing, only to point out exactly what was bothering me. I’m fascinated by his ability to wrap his head around 3D, something I would have never ventured into without him. We lift each other in many ways and I’m incredibly lucky to share this unpredictable creative ride with him.

What have been some of your favourite projects?

Our first public art project with the City of Sydney changed everything for us and gave the birds a presence in the city like we would have never imagined. It was the first time we had ever seen our work at that scale and replicated on so many buildings. It gave the birds the perfect platform and the loudest voice and it completely restructured us. Also working with the Sydney Opera House as part of their Uncovered Program was a bucket list moment for us, to work with an icon that is an artwork in its own right, in addition to being one of the busiest performing arts venues on the planet. It became a beautiful responsibility and honour to represent Australia’s wildlife at the House and to have been mentored by such an incredible team.

Our latest public art piece has to be the one that completely stole our hearts. It’s our first collaborative project with an entire town in Rural NSW. It was over morning tea, after taking part in a Key Biodiversity Area survey in Grenfell, when we were asked what we did for work. And that’s how the project began.

“We have to bring this to our town!”. The word spread and in a heartbeat the community came together and got involved in the creation of their very own Birds of Caragabal. The kids from the Caragabal Public School each chose and researched a species to pitch to their class and they all voted on which birds would make the flock. 18 iconic and vulnerable birds now stand tall as the town’s local landmark, including the future endangered Superb Parrot, starting much needed conversations. We’re beyond grateful to work with communities like these. When you visit Caragabal you’ll find these amazing species, alongside some truly incredible humans working to protect them.

You’ve worked on some amazing large-scale murals and now the sculptures, how does your work translate between different platforms?

We first started working together in three dimensions, learning to communicate our own ideas to each other through the creation of art toys and sculptures as our abilities could meet halfway. It was the perfect medium as art toys were first created for artists and designers to explore 3D. We developed a very distinctive style, which was then translated into illustrations when we arrived in Sydney, as we needed the immediacy of the drawings to keep up with the stories we wanted to tell. We created characters that had a piece of both of us and that trod a fine line between design, art and cartoon. The colours and shapes are bold and scientifically accurate and you will always find the little eye that ties all the work together. These characters, drawings and concepts started expanding into the world around us. Always with one purpose in mind, to end wildlife extinction through education.

How has your work helped wildlife conservation?

Our work brings the species to light, compelling people to fall in love, through art that is relatable for everyone and is universally loved, that brings people joy, a sense of wonder, discovery and gives them hope. We remind people of their role in this world and that empowers them to make changes, however small, in the direction to heal our relationship with this land. The beginning of living respectfully with the land comes with knowing it. And knowledge is the beginning of love. And when we fall in love, we want to fiercely protect.

We create a bridge between the community and the not-for-profit organisations that we work with and we donate part of our sales and our work to support their research and conservation programs. We work with and listen to scientists to develop our projects, which has allowed us to establish multidisciplinary partnerships. We rely on their data and knowledge to open up conversations about animals and the problems they face. With this information, we are able to identify and determine aspects that can engage people and ultimately shift mindsets and behaviours.

What are some of the ways we can all help?

We can begin by changing our language. Even the way we speak about nature, the way in which we communicate, disconnects us from the more than human kin. We talk about animals and other livings beings as “it” and put them in the same categories as inanimate objects. Robin Wall Kimmerer, writer and botanist, brings this to light in her book Braiding Sweetgrass. Key to this is restoring what she calls the “grammar of animacy”. This means viewing nature not as a resource but like an elder “relative” – to recognise kinship with the living world.

We must challenge the corporations and systems that urge us to live in a world-consuming throwaway society, those who only see value in a forest once the trees are cut down and that promote a great tide of junk. The problems we face are structural: a political system captured by commercial interests and an economic system that seeks endless growth.

How many more documentaries does David Attenborough need to make for people to change? We need to commit.

We need to embrace and respect ancestral knowledge, listen and learn from those who know this planet better than any of us and have been here from the very beginning. We need to not just show up for that one-off protest, or donate only when our house is already on fire. We need to understand that as humans we carry a unique ability, that also comes with great responsibility. Individual and collective. And we need to understand that nature has the right to exist, not for what it can do for us. It just has the right to exist.

We need to not just show up, but stay.

What’s coming up?

We are currently working with Dr Kate Umbers from the School of Science of the Western Sydney University to measure how art can be an effective way to influence people’s attitudes and change perceptions and awareness of the public around conservation issues. More specifically, inspiring public support for the conservation of Australia’s alpine animals in the form of prints and public art.

Our ultimate aim is to effect a change in government policy to remove the threats to Australia’s alpine biodiversity. The Australian alpine region is among the world’s most threatened ecosystems, currently in the process of being listed as a Threatened Ecosystem with the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature). The majority of the alpine flora and fauna require winter snow cover and spring melts. With climate models predicting no snow in our alps by 2070, many are vulnerable to extinction within the next 50 years. Despite this, state and federal governments continue to allow the loss of biodiversity through not controlling feral species, taking no action on climate change, and approving major developments like Snowy Hydro 2.0.

https://eggpicnic.com/