ABOUT
More Than Human Lens is a research and design initiative for anyone who suspects the stories we live by are narrowing the world.
We live inside human-centred narratives so complete they feel like nature. Other species show up as content, symbols, pets, props, villains, resources. Even when the intention is care, the frame is often extraction: attention, affect, clicks, novelty.
More Than Human Lens asks a simple question that is not easy to answer:
How can we access, or at least think alongside, other sensory worlds?
We approach this through a deliberate collision of methods: empirical knowledge (scientific, ethnographic, local) plus speculative practice (fiction, myth-making, digital folklore). Not escapism. A tool for recalibrating perception, empathy, and responsibility.
Who we are
More Than Human Lens is led by Miguel Prado Casanova (philosopher) and Patricia Fraga Pérez (anthropologist and UX designer). We work at the intersection of philosophy, anthropology, design, and cultural practice, using speculation as a way to pressure-test the default human viewpoint.
The conceptual backbone
We build from Jakob von Uexküll’s Umwelt, and from thinkers who refuse the fantasy of human exceptionalism, including Vinciane Despret, Anna Tsing, Donna Haraway, and Eduardo Kohn. The point is not to “become the animal”. The point is to notice the filters, then design ways to write and think with interdependence, partial access, and ecological entanglement.
The Toolkit
With support from the AHRC Impact Acceleration Account (2024) and the Higher Education Innovation Fund (2025), we developed the More Than Human Lens Toolkit: structured enough to guide you, flexible enough to travel.
It works in three linked dimensions:
Micro-investigation
Ground your inquiry in scientific, ethnographic, and local knowledge.Multispecies worldbuilding
Situate perception inside habitat, relations, constraints, affordances.Speculative narratives
Write futures that do not default to the human as the measure of all things.
The toolkit has been developed through workshops with cultural organisations, students, artists, and policy professionals (including sessions with DEFRA, Natural England, and ASRA). Participants use tools such as the Sensory Channels Deck, the Physio-Ecological Axes Wheel, and Umwelt Logs to generate stories that resist anthropocentric shortcuts, and to translate those stories into insight.
What it’s for
This is for you if you are a…
educator building new ways to teach ecology, ethics, and imagination
researcher working across species, media, and culture
designer tired of “human-centred” as a default setting
artist or writer looking for constraints that generate better worlds
policymaker or futures practitioner who needs richer frames than “risk and resources”
organisation trying to think biodiversity without turning life into a brand asset
The point
More Than Human Lens is a living resource. It exists to do one job well: challenge anthropocentrism, and make imagination answerable to planetary care.
More Than Human Lens is a research and design initiative for anyone who suspects the stories we live by are narrowing the world.
We live inside human-centred narratives so complete they feel like nature. Other species show up as content, symbols, pets, props, villains, resources. Even when the intention is care, the frame is often extraction: attention, affect, clicks, novelty.
More Than Human Lens asks a simple question that is not easy to answer:
How can we access, or at least think alongside, other sensory worlds?
We approach this through a deliberate collision of methods: empirical knowledge (scientific, ethnographic, local) plus speculative practice (fiction, myth-making, digital folklore). Not escapism. A tool for recalibrating perception, empathy, and responsibility.
Who we are
More Than Human Lens is led by Miguel Prado Casanova (philosopher) and Patricia Fraga Pérez (anthropologist and UX designer). We work at the intersection of philosophy, anthropology, design, and cultural practice, using speculation as a way to pressure-test the default human viewpoint.
The conceptual backbone
We build from Jakob von Uexküll’s Umwelt, and from thinkers who refuse the fantasy of human exceptionalism, including Vinciane Despret, Anna Tsing, Donna Haraway, and Eduardo Kohn. The point is not to “become the animal”. The point is to notice the filters, then design ways to write and think with interdependence, partial access, and ecological entanglement.
The Toolkit
With support from the AHRC Impact Acceleration Account (2024) and the Higher Education Innovation Fund (2025), we developed the More Than Human Lens Toolkit: structured enough to guide you, flexible enough to travel.
It works in three linked dimensions:
Micro-investigation
Ground your inquiry in scientific, ethnographic, and local knowledge.Multispecies worldbuilding
Situate perception inside habitat, relations, constraints, affordances.Speculative narratives
Write futures that do not default to the human as the measure of all things.
The toolkit has been developed through workshops with cultural organisations, students, artists, and policy professionals (including sessions with DEFRA, Natural England, and ASRA). Participants use tools such as the Sensory Channels Deck, the Physio-Ecological Axes Wheel, and Umwelt Logs to generate stories that resist anthropocentric shortcuts, and to translate those stories into insight.
What it’s for
This is for you if you are a…
educator building new ways to teach ecology, ethics, and imagination
researcher working across species, media, and culture
designer tired of “human-centred” as a default setting
artist or writer looking for constraints that generate better worlds
policymaker or futures practitioner who needs richer frames than “risk and resources”
organisation trying to think biodiversity without turning life into a brand asset
The point
More Than Human Lens is a living resource. It exists to do one job well: challenge anthropocentrism, and make imagination answerable to planetary care.
More Than Human Lens is a research and design initiative for anyone who suspects the stories we live by are narrowing the world.
We live inside human-centred narratives so complete they feel like nature. Other species show up as content, symbols, pets, props, villains, resources. Even when the intention is care, the frame is often extraction: attention, affect, clicks, novelty.
More Than Human Lens asks a simple question that is not easy to answer:
How can we access, or at least think alongside, other sensory worlds?
We approach this through a deliberate collision of methods: empirical knowledge (scientific, ethnographic, local) plus speculative practice (fiction, myth-making, digital folklore). Not escapism. A tool for recalibrating perception, empathy, and responsibility.
Who we are
More Than Human Lens is led by Miguel Prado Casanova (philosopher) and Patricia Fraga Pérez (anthropologist and UX designer). We work at the intersection of philosophy, anthropology, design, and cultural practice, using speculation as a way to pressure-test the default human viewpoint.
The conceptual backbone
We build from Jakob von Uexküll’s Umwelt, and from thinkers who refuse the fantasy of human exceptionalism, including Vinciane Despret, Anna Tsing, Donna Haraway, and Eduardo Kohn. The point is not to “become the animal”. The point is to notice the filters, then design ways to write and think with interdependence, partial access, and ecological entanglement.
The Toolkit
With support from the AHRC Impact Acceleration Account (2024) and the Higher Education Innovation Fund (2025), we developed the More Than Human Lens Toolkit: structured enough to guide you, flexible enough to travel.
It works in three linked dimensions:
Micro-investigation
Ground your inquiry in scientific, ethnographic, and local knowledge.Multispecies worldbuilding
Situate perception inside habitat, relations, constraints, affordances.Speculative narratives
Write futures that do not default to the human as the measure of all things.
The toolkit has been developed through workshops with cultural organisations, students, artists, and policy professionals (including sessions with DEFRA, Natural England, and ASRA). Participants use tools such as the Sensory Channels Deck, the Physio-Ecological Axes Wheel, and Umwelt Logs to generate stories that resist anthropocentric shortcuts, and to translate those stories into insight.
What it’s for
This is for you if you are a…
educator building new ways to teach ecology, ethics, and imagination
researcher working across species, media, and culture
designer tired of “human-centred” as a default setting
artist or writer looking for constraints that generate better worlds
policymaker or futures practitioner who needs richer frames than “risk and resources”
organisation trying to think biodiversity without turning life into a brand asset
The point
More Than Human Lens is a living resource. It exists to do one job well: challenge anthropocentrism, and make imagination answerable to planetary care.