{ "project_name": "Co-Constructing Multispecies Futures", "status": "working history", "updated": "2026-10-20", "version": "0.1.2", "scope": "Documented workshop materials, presentations, development contexts, and related embodied-worldbuilding projects. A related project does not establish use of the card deck at every event. Dates and locations are left open where the sources do not establish them.", "entries": [ { "id": "mhdi-2023", "title": "Minority Health Disparities Initiative", "connection_kind": "workshop", "date_label": "2023", "event_start": "2023", "event_end": null, "date_basis": "event date", "place": "Venue not recorded", "theme": "Health and collective futures", "iteration": "An early version combined an object, mood, and what-if question, then asked for a story from a particular point of view. Later design discussions recalled this as an early shared workshop.", "evidence_status": "Retrospective workshop account", "confidence": "retrospective", "unknowns": "Exact date, venue, and formal event title remain to be confirmed.", "sources": [ { "label": "Card-development discussion, “Transcript from zoom from oct 14”" }, { "label": "Card-deck instruction drafts, 24 June 2025 development notes" } ] }, { "id": "nist-2024", "title": "Animal and Cellular Agriculture Futures / NIST", "connection_kind": "workshop", "date_label": "7–8 March 2024", "event_start": "2024-03-07", "event_end": "2024-03-08", "date_basis": "event date", "place": "Venue not recorded", "theme": "Animal agriculture, cellular agriculture, and food systems", "iteration": "Participants used what-if prompts, moods, and objects to imagine food-system futures in 2040, tell short sensory stories, and compare themes across groups.", "evidence_status": "Workshop instructions and retrospective account", "confidence": "documented", "unknowns": "The event venue is not established by the reviewed materials.", "sources": [ { "label": "“Nist 2024” workshop instructions" }, { "label": "Heartland Robotics breakfast invitation and workshop plan, 24 October 2025" }, { "label": "“Playing with” Creative Engagement, Great Plains Futures Conference script, 1 April 2026" } ] }, { "id": "plf-2025", "title": "Animal Agriculture 2050: A Co-Visioning Lunch", "connection_kind": "workshop", "date_label": "4 June 2025", "event_start": "2025-06-04", "event_end": null, "date_basis": "event date", "place": "Regents B&C, Lincoln, Nebraska · US PLF 2025", "theme": "Livestock, technology, welfare, and food-system futures", "iteration": "The PLF edition used Mood, Object, and Spark cards for collaborative storytelling. The post-session reflection considered a shorter introduction and easier routes from memory warmup into play.", "evidence_status": "Dated workshop description and post-session reflection", "confidence": "documented", "unknowns": "The source gives the room name; the exact building is not specified here.", "sources": [ { "label": "“PLF Social sustainability and CO-Visioning Lunch,” workshop description" }, { "label": "Speculative Design Cards SmithBendix Edgeworks, post-PLF reflection" }, { "label": "University of Nebraska–Lincoln, 2025 USPLF conference page", "url": "https://enreec.unl.edu/2025usplf-lincoln/" } ] }, { "id": "heartland-2025", "title": "Re-imagining the Future of Food Systems in Nebraska", "connection_kind": "workshop", "date_label": "24 October 2025", "event_start": "2025-10-24", "event_end": null, "date_basis": "event date", "place": "Innovation Campus, University of Nebraska–Lincoln · before the Heartland Robotics Conference", "theme": "Robotics, automation, and future food production", "iteration": "The breakfast recipe paired Speculation, Affect, and Narrative Construction in a Nebraska 2050 setting. Facilitators held the additional layers, with Collaborator and Point of View available for later rounds.", "evidence_status": "Dated invitation and facilitator instructions", "confidence": "documented", "unknowns": "The reviewed source establishes the planned session and recipe; no outcome claim is made.", "sources": [ { "label": "Heartland Robotics breakfast invitation and workshop plan, 24 October 2025" }, { "label": "“cards instructions,” robotics session, 24 October 2025" } ] }, { "id": "foodid-helsinki-2025", "title": "FoodID / VTT: Hybrid Foods Futures", "connection_kind": "workshop", "date_label": "27 October 2025", "event_start": "2025-10-27", "event_end": null, "date_basis": "event date", "place": "Helsinki, Finland · FoodID / VTT materials", "theme": "Hybrid foods and alternative proteins", "iteration": "Future food dreams became what-if prompts. A sensory-memory exercise led into group stories in 2050 using Construction, Affect, and Speculation, with optional Point of View and Collaborator cards.", "evidence_status": "Dated workshop slide set", "confidence": "documented", "unknowns": "Helsinki is the source-file location label; the exact venue is not recorded.", "sources": [ { "label": "FoodID Helsinki/VTT workshop slides, 27 October 2025, slides 1 and 5–14" } ] }, { "id": "sws-2026", "title": "Co-Constructing Multispecies Feminist Futures", "connection_kind": "workshop", "date_label": "7 February 2026 · programmed", "event_start": "2026-02-07", "event_end": null, "date_basis": "event date", "place": "Sociologists for Women in Society Winter Conference · San Diego, California", "theme": "Preferable feminist futures in 2050", "iteration": "The accepted session proposed successive rounds of what-if, mood, object, and other-species prompts, followed by short collective stories and discussion of how to carry the work forward.", "evidence_status": "Accepted and programmed session", "confidence": "documented", "unknowns": "The programme date is documented; delivery and participant outcomes are not confirmed in the reviewed material.", "sources": [ { "label": "SWS 2026 accepted-session description, LLE07; programme date 7 February 2026" } ] }, { "id": "nordic-2026", "title": "Nordic Sensory Workshop: Communicating Science Beyond Slides", "connection_kind": "workshop", "date_label": "23 April 2026", "event_start": "2026-04-23", "event_end": null, "date_basis": "event date", "place": "Tieteiden talo, Helsinki, Finland", "theme": "Sensory science, systems, and sustainability", "iteration": "The table guide combines a childhood food memory, participant-authored food fantasies, and Construction / Speculation / Affect stories in 2050. The public programme identifies playful groupwork inspired by the toolkit’s approach.", "evidence_status": "Official programme and workshop table guide", "confidence": "documented", "unknowns": "The wider event ran 22–23 April; this activity is assigned to 23 April.", "sources": [ { "label": "Nordic Sensory Workshop table guide, 23 April 2026" }, { "label": "Nordic Sensory Workshop official programme, 23 April 2026 science-communication session", "url": "https://blogs.helsinki.fi/nordic-sensory-workshop/programme/" }, { "label": "Nordic Sensory Workshop official event page and venue", "url": "https://blogs.helsinki.fi/nordic-sensory-workshop/" } ] }, { "id": "foodid-teachers-2026", "title": "FoodID Biotechnology Teacher’s Workshop", "connection_kind": "workshop", "date_label": "22–23 June 2026", "event_start": "2026-06-22", "event_end": "2026-06-23", "date_basis": "event date", "place": "Venue not recorded", "theme": "Food and biotechnology education", "iteration": "A pleasant sensory food memory and a personal future fantasy precede shared Construction, Speculation, and Affect draws. Participants may use their own what-if cards to make a short sensory story set in 2046.", "evidence_status": "Dated participant table guide", "confidence": "documented", "unknowns": "The handout gives the workshop dates but does not identify a venue.", "sources": [ { "label": "FoodID Biotechnology Teacher’s Workshop table guide, 22–23 June 2026" } ] }, { "id": "june-food-bioeconomy", "title": "The Bioeconomy: Fermentation and the Future of Food", "connection_kind": "workshop", "date_label": "25 June · year to confirm", "event_start": null, "event_end": null, "date_basis": "day and month in agenda; year unknown", "place": "FoodID teaching workshop · venue not recorded", "theme": "Biotechnology and future food", "iteration": "The agenda includes a 35-minute Speculative Design Activity: The Future of Food, alongside fermentation experiments and food-system teaching modules.", "evidence_status": "Workshop agenda", "confidence": "partial date", "unknowns": "The agenda states June 25 without a year. A 2025 revision appears in the filename; that is not treated as a confirmed event year.", "sources": [ { "label": "The Bioeconomy: Fermentation and the Future of Food, June 25 workshop agenda" } ] }, { "id": "scc-teachers", "title": "SCC workshop with middle- and high-school teachers", "connection_kind": "workshop", "date_label": "Date to confirm", "event_start": null, "event_end": null, "date_basis": "not recorded", "place": "SCC · venue to confirm", "theme": "Teaching and co-visioning", "iteration": "Development discussions identify an earlier set of instruction cards made for this teacher workshop. Those cards informed later welcome, warmup, preferable-futures, ground-rule, and story instructions.", "evidence_status": "Retrospective development account", "confidence": "retrospective", "unknowns": "The source uses the acronym SCC; the date and venue are not specified.", "sources": [ { "label": "Card-development discussion, “Transcript from zoom from oct 14”" } ] }, { "id": "scicomm-development", "title": "Science-communication workshops / SciComm", "connection_kind": "workshop", "date_label": "Multiple sessions · materials from 2024", "event_start": null, "event_end": null, "date_basis": "Repeated science-communication sessions are recalled in development discussions. The 2024 year comes from a workshop-slide filename dated 30 October 2024; it does not establish the first or exact workshop date.", "place": "Venue not recorded", "theme": "Communicating science through speculative stories", "iteration": "Development discussions recall science-communication sessions using tailored what-if questions. Workshop slides ask groups to revise and select Sparks; a companion talk explains the Mood / Object / Spark-to-Narrative card structure.", "evidence_status": "Retrospective account and workshop slides", "confidence": "retrospective", "unknowns": "The sources describe multiple science-communication sessions. The workshop file is labeled 30 October 2024; this dates the materials, not the first session. The starting year, individual session dates, and venues remain to be confirmed.", "sources": [ { "label": "Card-development discussion, “Transcript from zoom from oct 14”" }, { "label": "Card-deck instruction drafts, 24 June 2025 development notes" }, { "label": "Co-Creating ArtScience, SciComm workshop slides, p. 44; file label 30 October 2024" }, { "label": "Co-Creating ArtScience, SciComm 30-minute talk slides, p. 44" } ] }, { "id": "usda-workshop", "title": "USDA workshop", "connection_kind": "workshop", "date_label": "Date to confirm", "event_start": null, "event_end": null, "date_basis": "Event date not yet supplied; owner confirmation dated 20 October 2026", "place": "Location to confirm", "theme": "Theme to confirm", "iteration": "The project owner confirmed that USDA was one specific workshop in the toolkit’s history. Its workshop recipe and deck iteration remain to be documented.", "evidence_status": "Workshop confirmed by the project owner", "confidence": "user-confirmed", "unknowns": "The formal event title, date, location, collaborators, and workshop recipe are still to be added. This is a separate entry from the NIST and PLF workshops.", "sources": [ { "label": "Project owner confirmation, 20 October 2026" } ] }, { "id": "isp-development", "title": "I-SPARK prompt-bank adaptation", "connection_kind": "development", "date_label": "Date to confirm", "event_start": null, "event_end": null, "date_basis": "not recorded", "place": "Venue not recorded", "theme": "Food systems, community, and sustainability", "iteration": "An I-SPARK source tab contains Object, Mood, and food-system what-if prompts. The instruction-development notes identify ISPARK among the contexts used to tailor the activity.", "evidence_status": "Context-specific prompt materials", "confidence": "context documented", "unknowns": "No dated workshop agenda or venue is present in the reviewed record.", "sources": [ { "label": "“I-SPARK” prompt-bank tab" }, { "label": "Card-deck instruction drafts, 24 June 2025 development notes" } ] }, { "id": "lincoln-recycling", "title": "Recycling Futures in Lincoln", "connection_kind": "development", "date_label": "Date to confirm", "event_start": null, "event_end": null, "date_basis": "not recorded", "place": "Lincoln, Nebraska", "theme": "Recycling, waste, and community futures", "iteration": "A worksheet explores a 2075 world through ecology and health, resources, culture, infrastructure, governance, and economy. Seven logic lenses connect these domains to multispecies relationships.", "evidence_status": "Workshop-development worksheet", "confidence": "context documented", "unknowns": "2075 is the imagined setting, not the event date. Delivery of a particular workshop is not established by this worksheet.", "sources": [ { "label": "“Recycling Futures in Lincoln (2075)” worksheet" }, { "label": "Card-development discussion, “Transcript from zoom from oct 14”" } ] }, { "id": "mss-talk-2025", "title": "Community Engaged Art and Social Science", "connection_kind": "presentation", "date_label": "13 March 2025", "event_start": "2025-03-13", "event_end": null, "date_basis": "event title slide", "place": "Midwest Sociological Society · Chicago, Illinois", "theme": "Worldbuilding, futuring, and speculative design to co-imagine equitable futures", "iteration": "The talk presents the card method alongside community-engaged art and social science, including the earlier NIST what-if / mood / object recipe. Its slides also informed the deck’s introductory explanation.", "evidence_status": "Dated presentation slide set", "confidence": "documented", "unknowns": "The source establishes a presentation of the methods; it does not establish that attendees played the cards at this event.", "sources": [ { "label": "“Introduction – Overview,” reference to a March 2025 Midwest sociological talk" }, { "label": "Community Engaged Art and Social Science, Midwest Sociological Society slides, pp. 1, 28, 77" } ] }, { "id": "no-coast-scicomm-2025", "title": "Playing for Perspectives: Growing Systems Thinking in the Virtual Farm of the Future", "connection_kind": "presentation", "date_label": "17 September 2025", "event_start": "2025-09-17", "event_end": null, "date_basis": "event title slide", "place": "No Coast SciComm symposium · city not recorded", "theme": "MuMu, systems thinking, and playful science communication", "iteration": "The Fun and Games presentation connects MuMu’s virtual farm with worldbuilding and speculative-design methods. Its slides describe the cards and reuse an earlier NIST story recipe.", "evidence_status": "Dated presentation slide set", "confidence": "documented", "unknowns": "The event city and whether attendees used the deck during this presentation are not established.", "sources": [ { "label": "Playing for Perspectives, No Coast SciComm symposium slides, pp. 1, 40, 85" } ] }, { "id": "great-plains-2026", "title": "“Playing with” Creative Engagement", "connection_kind": "presentation", "date_label": "1 April 2026", "event_start": "2026-04-01", "event_end": null, "date_basis": "talk-script heading", "place": "Great Plains Futures Conference · venue to confirm", "theme": "Creative public engagement and collective futures", "iteration": "Lisa PytlikZillig’s talk script describes worldbuilding, futuring, and speculative design. It presents the mood / object / what-if card approach alongside NIST workshop examples, MuMu, and The Middle.", "evidence_status": "Dated conference talk script", "confidence": "documented", "unknowns": "The script establishes the scheduled talk and content; the venue is not given.", "sources": [ { "label": "“Playing with” Creative Engagement, Great Plains Futures Conference script, 1 April 2026" } ] }, { "id": "hatch-worldbuilding", "title": "HATCH worldbuilding session", "connection_kind": "related", "date_label": "Date to confirm", "event_start": null, "event_end": null, "date_basis": "not recorded", "place": "Venue not recorded", "theme": "Collective worldbuilding", "iteration": "Development discussions recall table-based worldbuilding using mandala worksheets and supporting what-if questions. The discussion distinguishes this session from the more tightly structured card recipe.", "evidence_status": "Retrospective method-development account", "confidence": "retrospective", "unknowns": "No date or place is recorded here. Direct use of the current card deck is not established.", "sources": [ { "label": "Card-development discussion, “Transcript from zoom from oct 14”" }, { "label": "Speculative Design Cards SmithBendix Edgeworks, post-PLF reflection" } ] }, { "id": "robotics-popup", "title": "Speculative Robotics Lab Pop-Up", "connection_kind": "related", "date_label": "Multiple sessions · documented in January 2025", "event_start": "2025-01", "event_end": null, "date_basis": "The manuscript describes a roughly three-month pop-up and locates activity in January 2025. That is a documented activity month, not an established first-session or closing date.", "place": "University of Nebraska–Lincoln Innovation Campus", "theme": "Encountering: live action robotic roleplay and care", "iteration": "Participants rehearsed relations with human-voiced robots and live scenarios. The paper develops encountering from this practice; it does not establish that every pop-up session used the card deck.", "evidence_status": "Manuscript project account", "confidence": "documented", "unknowns": "The paper reports roughly three months of activity and describes the room in January 2025. The first and last session dates are not specified, and deck use at each session is not established.", "sources": [ { "label": "Performing the What-If, Ash Eliza Smith and Julia McQuillan, §§3–5" } ] }, { "id": "southern-devices", "title": "Southern Devices", "connection_kind": "related", "date_label": "Multiple community interviews · 2024 project reference", "event_start": null, "event_end": null, "date_basis": "The manuscript reports roughly 50 community interviews and two years of development. The 2024 year is a bibliographic project reference; it does not establish the first interview or workshop year.", "place": "Western North Carolina; Optimist Park", "theme": "Moving with: dance, place, infrastructure, and the drone", "iteration": "A drone duet and community interviews inform the paper’s account of moving with. This is a related performance and worldbuilding practice, not a documented card-deck workshop.", "evidence_status": "Manuscript project account", "confidence": "documented", "unknowns": "Roughly 50 community interviews and two years of development are reported. The project is referenced as 2024; exact starting and ending dates are not specified. These encounters are not documented as card-deck workshops.", "sources": [ { "label": "Performing the What-If, Ash Eliza Smith and Julia McQuillan, §§3–5" } ] }, { "id": "mumu", "title": "MuMu: Worlds of Connections", "connection_kind": "related", "date_label": "Multiple playtests · 2025 project reference", "event_start": null, "event_end": null, "date_basis": "The manuscript reports roughly 20 playtest sessions. The 2025 year identifies the cited XR project, not the first playtest; individual playtest dates are not recorded.", "place": "Cedar Point Biological Station (fieldwork); playtest venues not listed", "theme": "Becoming-with: a multispecies XR world", "iteration": "Youth, scientists, and artists helped shape a world experienced as prairie dog, apple tree, planting robot, and caretaker. Field observation and playtesting inform becoming-with and bodily perspective shifts.", "evidence_status": "Manuscript project and fieldwork account", "confidence": "documented", "unknowns": "The paper describes roughly 20 playtests. The project reference is dated 2025, but the first playtest year and individual session dates are not established. Card use at every playtest is not established.", "sources": [ { "label": "Performing the What-If, Ash Eliza Smith and Julia McQuillan, §§3–5" } ] }, { "id": "the-middle", "title": "The Middle / rural community futuring", "connection_kind": "related", "date_label": "Multiple workshops · 2024 publication reference", "event_start": null, "event_end": null, "date_basis": "The Hyperrhiz 27 project publication is dated 2024 and describes a series of worldbuilding workshops. That is a publication year, not an established first-workshop date.", "place": "Alliance and Nebraska’s Panhandle · specific venues not recorded", "theme": "Community health and preferable local futures", "iteration": "A series of community worldbuilding workshops fed The Middle’s shared digital environment through 3D scans, collage, drawing, audio, and storytelling. The public project account connects collective imagining in physical spaces with an interactive archive of possible community futures.", "evidence_status": "Published project account and workshop-development record", "confidence": "documented", "unknowns": "The 2024 year refers to the Hyperrhiz publication. The first workshop year, individual session dates, and specific venues remain to be confirmed. Use of this exact card deck at every workshop is not established.", "sources": [ { "label": "“Playing with” Creative Engagement, Great Plains Futures Conference script, 1 April 2026" }, { "label": "Card-deck instruction drafts, 24 June 2025 development notes" }, { "label": "Smith, Bendix, and Lichtman, In the Middle of It All, Hyperrhiz 27 (2024), artists’ statement and credits", "url": "https://hyperrhiz.io/hyperrhiz27/assemblages/02-smith-bendix-lichtman.html" }, { "label": "Ash Eliza Smith, In The Middle project page, Alliance, Nebraska", "url": "https://asheveryday.com/index.php/worldbuilding-community/in-the-middle/" } ] }, { "id": "radio-play-isea-2022", "title": "Radio Play · ISEA2022", "connection_kind": "related", "date_label": "11 June 2022", "event_start": "2022-06-11", "event_end": null, "date_basis": "The public project page gives June 11 for the ISEA2022 Barcelona workshop. Shared presentation slides identify a photograph of this workshop.", "place": "CCCB · Barcelona, Spain", "theme": "Participatory worldbuilding, collective performance, and human–machine co-authorship", "iteration": "A participatory writers’ room worked with GPT-3 toward a collaboratively authored live radio show. The workshop connects speculative storytelling with performance, listening, and shared authorship.", "evidence_status": "Public project account and workshop photograph", "confidence": "documented", "unknowns": "This is a documented workshop in the wider practice. The reviewed sources do not establish use of the Co-Constructing Multispecies Futures card deck at this event.", "sources": [ { "label": "Radio Play project page, Episode 1: Barcelona, ISEA2022, June 11", "url": "https://asheveryday.com/index.php/radio-play/radio-play/" }, { "label": "Community Engaged Art and Social Science, Midwest Sociological Society presentation, p. 16: Radio Play workshop photograph" } ] }, { "id": "larrp-kiewit-2025", "title": "Live Action Robotic Role Play · Kiewit Luminarium", "connection_kind": "related", "date_label": "17 July 2025", "event_start": "2025-07-17", "event_end": null, "date_basis": "The public event account explicitly dates the Kiewit Luminarium session July 17, 2025, 7–10 p.m.; photographs document interaction and roleplay.", "place": "Kiewit Luminarium · Omaha, Nebraska", "theme": "Multispecies care and live action robotic roleplay", "iteration": "Visitors explored scenarios of more-than-human care with a robotic dog and robotic arm through live action robotic roleplay. The session extended the Speculative Robotics Lab Pop-Up. The project team was Ash Eliza Smith, Robert Twomey, Sam Bendix, and Reid Brockmeier.", "evidence_status": "Dated public event account and workshop photographs", "confidence": "documented", "unknowns": "This is a documented robotic-roleplay workshop. The source does not establish use of the card deck at this particular session.", "sources": [ { "label": "Robert Twomey, LARPing with the Bots at Kiewit Luminarium, July 17, 2025", "url": "https://roberttwomey.com/2025/07/larping-with-the-bots-at-kiewit-luminarium/" } ] }, { "id": "edgeland-futurism-teaching", "title": "Edgeland Futurism", "connection_kind": "related", "date_label": "Teaching dates to confirm", "event_start": null, "event_end": null, "date_basis": "The public teaching portfolio identifies the course, UC San Diego, and its instructors, but does not establish the course year or term.", "place": "UC San Diego · San Diego, California", "theme": "Borders, place, and speculative futures", "iteration": "Teaching and exhibition brought speculative futures into movement, performance, objects, images, and shared discussion. The portfolio names Ash Eliza Smith and Pepe Rojo as instructors and documents related embodied speculative-design practice.", "evidence_status": "Public teaching portfolio and project documentation", "confidence": "documented", "unknowns": "The year, academic term, and session dates remain to be confirmed. This is related teaching practice; the source does not establish use of the later card deck.", "sources": [ { "label": "Ash Eliza Smith, Edgeland Futurism teaching portfolio: UC San Diego; instructors Ash Eliza Smith and Pepe Rojo", "url": "https://asheveryday.com/index.php/teaching/edgeland-futurism/" } ] }, { "id": "seabreeze-bop-city", "title": "Seabreeze Bop City", "connection_kind": "related", "date_label": "Fieldwork dates to confirm", "event_start": null, "event_end": null, "date_basis": "The public project account and the project owner’s clarification identify student fieldwork and community futuring but do not give event dates, a start year, or the number of sessions. The owner’s confirmation on 20 October 2026 is not an event date.", "place": "Seabreeze, North Carolina · specific fieldwork sites not recorded", "theme": "Student fieldwork, community histories, land, and preferable futures", "iteration": "Students work with community through fieldwork, place-based storytelling, and immersive media to explore preferable futures. Seabreeze Bop City connects community histories and land with shared ways of imagining and making, bringing futures practice into community settings.", "evidence_status": "Public project account and project-owner clarification", "confidence": "documented", "unknowns": "Fieldwork dates, the starting year, individual sites, and the number of sessions remain to be confirmed. This is related community and teaching practice; use of the card deck is not established.", "sources": [ { "label": "Ash Eliza Smith, Seabreeze Bop City project page: student fieldwork, community engagement, and place-based futures", "url": "https://asheveryday.com/index.php/seabreeze-bop-city/seabreeze-bop-city/" }, { "label": "Project owner’s clarification, 20 October 2026: Seabreeze Bop City images show students doing futuring with community" } ] } ] }