You know how it is when you live in a city. Every day feels like a constant barrage of adrenaline. Everyone is moving fast, and everywhere is filled with a hurriedness that can’t be controlled. Almost everything about living in a city, especially a mega-city, feels anti nature. In mega-cities, life can begin to feel detached from the natural world, as though concrete has swallowed every soft thing whole.

There are buildings everywhere because every inch of the city needs to accommodate the throng of people who live in it. And don’t get me started on the environment and what it feels like to be immersed in the fumes and by-products of an inordinate number of people, vehicles, and activities.

Often, as creatives, nature is one of the greatest inspirations we draw from. We write, design, imagine, produce, and create by leaning into the frameworks and visual metaphors that nature provides in abundance. Some of the greatest works of art, and even science, have come from artists who juxtapose ideas by observing how nature moves and behaves in different spheres.

A good example is Neri Oxman, an American-Israeli designer and professor known for work that combines design, biology, computing, and materials engineering. She believes in a future of synergy between nature and humanity, and this philosophy is how many great creatives have produced groundbreaking work that we interact with and use today: by studying and borrowing from nature.

So, what happens when you are surrounded by so much concrete and activity that you can hardly see or sense nature in its purest form? How can you interact with nature when you live in the city? Let’s look at that together.

Related Piece – Boost Your Ingenuity with a Dose of Mother Nature.

Take the products of nature around you and interrogate them. By this, I mean looking at the objects around you and getting curious about how they became products in the first place. Break down the process of that final product into its most biological form or atom, then research and think through how it became the thing you are now holding.

For example, get curious about what makes building blocks. What materials go into making cement itself? How are toys made? What materials went into making your favourite toy as a child? How do the people who create toys think through what to produce? What materials do they need, and where in nature are those materials found?

There is nature encoded in you and all around you. What are you doing with that information?

The sun is an inspiring natural phenomenon that we encounter every day. What if you took that phenomenon and made it a personal creative experience? If you are a writer, for example, you can write about the different ways you experience and interact with sunlight: through your windows, on your palms, as it shines on your face, through your sunscreen, or when it peers through your curtains or blinds.

The more you do this, the more you’ll notice other points of nature to interact with and make personal to you. You’ll observe shifts in sunlight, rain patterns, the way wind moves through high-rises, and many other things.

People are also part of nature, which means studying people can be a great way to gain creative inspiration. If you recently met someone who piqued your interest, take time to draw or write out the imagery that person evoked in you. The throngs of people heading to work in the morning can offer insights into how bees operate within a hive. You can borrow from metaphors like that to create and grow.

Don’t sleep on nature documentaries. They are great for understanding how ecosystems work, and they also double as meditative films because you can get lost in them and awaken your latent artistic senses.

Travel to new places from time to time because travelling is one of the best ways to become inspired. It doesn’t have to be expensive; it simply needs to immerse you in nature or give you the opportunity to experience how other people live.

Explore botanic gardens and parks. They are the city’s way of preserving nature in a makeshift habitat so people can observe and feed their curiosity about the many species that cohabit the earth with us. Go there, study their habits, and observe how they move and live. You’ll definitely gain a lot of insight.

Take long walks and notice the tiniest ways nature seems to push back against our city lives. Intentionally observe details like cracks in pavements where grass grows, rooftop gardens, urban wildlife, pets, algae, creeping plants, and the way vines stubbornly cling to walls.

Photography is another amazing way to find nature when you live in a city. Photography and sketching help you recreate fleeting things you may otherwise ignore or fail to notice deeply. It’s therefore a good practice for coaxing inspiration out of city walls.

Here are a couple of contemporary artists using nature as a backdrop for their work:

• Zaria Forman creates large-scale pastel drawings of remote landscapes, capturing the beauty and fragility of nature. Her work often focuses on climate change and its impact on polar regions.
• Katie Rodgers is an illustrator known for her ethereal watercolour paintings that often feature elements of nature and fashion. Her work brings a whimsical touch to natural motifs.
• Andrea Chung explores colonial and post-colonial themes, often using materials like sugar and turmeric. Her installations and collages reflect on the natural world’s role in cultural identity.