Multi Species Worlding - Imagination & Design for Thriving Futures

This workshop brings together multi-species artists, architects, researchers, storytellers, communicators, educators, entrepreneurs, designers, and anyone curious about co-creating worlds where all species thrive.

Multi-species Worlding (i.e. the process of building worlds for and alongside other species, as opposed to a homogenous, human-centered world) seeks to heal our felt separation from fellow species.

Through multi-species imagination, participants can tap into their empathic response-ability and co-create systems and practices that center the well-being and agency of all species. The good news is that we are not alone — we can draw upon the intelligence of nature from 3.5 billion years of R&D.

Animals and plant life are often casualties of our human inventions and designs, rather than co-creators that mutually benefit from them. This has resulted in catastrophic biodiversity loss.

This workshop encourages participants to take on the perspective of another species, feel what it’s like to be “other”, and speak on behalf of it. It seeks to catalyze a perception shift, away from the separation from nature and human exceptionalism towards interbeing — living and working with other species in the interest of all. Such a perception shift will contribute to your story, systems, and product innovation that build towards thriving and radically inclusive futures.

“The workshop has sparked new ideas and creative insights on how to incorporate multi-species understanding in my work as a way to enhance people’s connection with the natural world.” — Anne P.

New tools, systems, and frameworks (like biomimicry, voices of nature, and ecological design) first emerged from a deepened relationship with companion species and within our imagination.

What our workshops aim to do:

• Inspire a deeper connection to deeper parts of yourself and the living world;
• Practice thinking relationally, like ecosystems. This helps shift from fragmented and linear thinking to a more integrated and holistic perspective. Developing a living systems thinking perspective enables you to better understand and address complex problems;
• Increase your ability to envision multi-species futures and imagine one’s role and contribution in such futures, as well as one’s ability to devise strategies to realize them;
• By exploring the perspectives of other living beings, you foster creative thinking and learn to see new possibilities beyond the world as is— essential in a world of rapidly changing contexts and demands.

We hope that this workshop will contribute to your story, systems, and product innovation that build towards thriving and radically inclusive futures.

“My species' imagination stays with me all the time. A connection with a being that opened my mind and heart to the world.” — Dorothe L.

We are excited to host this event in partnership with Regenerative Timelab (by KNOWEAUX Applied Futures), a Berlin-based life-enhancing research and experience design platform, and will be hosted in their beautiful space in Prenzlauer Berg.

Are you unable to attend this workshop? This is the first in a series of workshops we will host this year. Sign up for our newsletter to receive updates about upcoming 2024 workshops in Berlin and online.

Thanks to the generous support of the Collective Imagination Practice Fund, we are now able to offer reduced tickets to participants and scholarships to those who would not be able to join us otherwise. Write us an email at niels(at)[email protected] - no questions asked!

Rūta Žemčugovaitė is a co-founder of Sympoiesis and Regenerative Research Lead.

Rūta is a freelance writer, facilitator, and multi-disciplinary artist, based in Berlin. She explores regenerative design practices and works with systems change facilitation through the lens of more-than-human perspectives. She has a background in psychology and has trained in trauma facilitation.

Niels Devisscher is the co-founder of Sympoiesis and Communications Lead. He works as a freelance communications designer, writer, and imagination facilitator. He is a visual artist and award-winning landscape photographer.

Learn more about Sympoiesis Experience and Design Lab here.
Follow us on @sympoiesis.world

Host or Publisher Rūta Žemčugovaitė & Niels Devisscher