Co-Constructing Multispecies Futures · Working history
Workshops, places & iterations.
The cards and ways of worldbuilding have travelled through classrooms, conferences, community conversations, and embodied practice. Explore how the approach changes with each gathering.
This is a running record, updated as workshops and iterations are added. It brings together workshop guides, slides, development notes, and Performing the What-If. Each entry shows what is documented and what remains to be filled in.
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.
Health and collective futures
Source & open details
Exact date, venue, and formal event title remain to be confirmed.
Card-development discussion, “Transcript from zoom from oct 14” Card-deck instruction drafts, 24 June 2025 development notes
7–8 March 2024Workshop instructions and retrospective account
Animal and Cellular Agriculture Futures / NIST
Venue not recorded
Participants used what-if prompts, moods, and objects to imagine food-system futures in 2040, tell short sensory stories, and compare themes across groups.
Animal agriculture, cellular agriculture, and food systems
Source & open details
The event venue is not established by the reviewed materials.
“Nist 2024” workshop instructions Heartland Robotics breakfast invitation and workshop plan, 24 October 2025 “Playing with” Creative Engagement, Great Plains Futures Conference script, 1 April 2026
4 June 2025Dated workshop description and post-session reflection
Animal Agriculture 2050: A Co-Visioning Lunch
Regents B&C, Lincoln, Nebraska · US PLF 2025
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.
Livestock, technology, welfare, and food-system futures
Source & open details
The source gives the room name; the exact building is not specified here.
24 October 2025Dated invitation and facilitator instructions
Re-imagining the Future of Food Systems in Nebraska
Innovation Campus, University of Nebraska–Lincoln · before the Heartland Robotics Conference
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.
Robotics, automation, and future food production
Source & open details
The reviewed source establishes the planned session and recipe; no outcome claim is made.
Heartland Robotics breakfast invitation and workshop plan, 24 October 2025 “cards instructions,” robotics session, 24 October 2025
27 October 2025Dated workshop slide set
FoodID / VTT: Hybrid Foods Futures
Helsinki, Finland · FoodID / VTT materials
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.
Hybrid foods and alternative proteins
Source & open details
Helsinki is the source-file location label; the exact venue is not recorded.
FoodID Helsinki/VTT workshop slides, 27 October 2025, slides 1 and 5–14
7 February 2026 · programmedAccepted and programmed session
Co-Constructing Multispecies Feminist Futures
Sociologists for Women in Society Winter Conference · San Diego, California
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.
Preferable feminist futures in 2050
Source & open details
The programme date is documented; delivery and participant outcomes are not confirmed in the reviewed material.
SWS 2026 accepted-session description, LLE07; programme date 7 February 2026
23 April 2026Official programme and workshop table guide
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.
Sensory science, systems, and sustainability
Source & open details
The wider event ran 22–23 April; this activity is assigned to 23 April.
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.
Food and biotechnology education
Source & open details
The handout gives the workshop dates but does not identify a venue.
FoodID Biotechnology Teacher’s Workshop table guide, 22–23 June 2026
25 June · year to confirmWorkshop agenda
The Bioeconomy: Fermentation and the Future of Food
FoodID teaching workshop · venue not recorded
The agenda includes a 35-minute Speculative Design Activity: The Future of Food, alongside fermentation experiments and food-system teaching modules.
Biotechnology and future food
Source & open details
The agenda states June 25 without a year. A 2025 revision appears in the filename; that is not treated as a confirmed event year.
The Bioeconomy: Fermentation and the Future of Food, June 25 workshop agenda
Date to confirmRetrospective development account
SCC workshop with middle- and high-school teachers
SCC · venue to confirm
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.
Teaching and co-visioning
Source & open details
The source uses the acronym SCC; the date and venue are not specified.
Card-development discussion, “Transcript from zoom from oct 14”
Multiple sessions · materials from 2024Retrospective account and workshop slides
Science-communication workshops / SciComm
Venue not recorded
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.
Communicating science through speculative stories
Source & open details
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.
Card-development discussion, “Transcript from zoom from oct 14” Card-deck instruction drafts, 24 June 2025 development notes Co-Creating ArtScience, SciComm workshop slides, p. 44; file label 30 October 2024 Co-Creating ArtScience, SciComm 30-minute talk slides, p. 44
Date to confirmWorkshop confirmed by the project owner
USDA workshop
Location to confirm
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.
Theme to confirm
Source & open details
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.
Project owner confirmation, 20 October 2026
Development contexts
Date to confirmContext-specific prompt materials
I-SPARK prompt-bank adaptation
Venue not recorded
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.
Food systems, community, and sustainability
Source & open details
No dated workshop agenda or venue is present in the reviewed record.
“I-SPARK” prompt-bank tab Card-deck instruction drafts, 24 June 2025 development notes
Date to confirmWorkshop-development worksheet
Recycling Futures in Lincoln
Lincoln, Nebraska
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.
Recycling, waste, and community futures
Source & open details
2075 is the imagined setting, not the event date. Delivery of a particular workshop is not established by this worksheet.
“Recycling Futures in Lincoln (2075)” worksheet Card-development discussion, “Transcript from zoom from oct 14”
Presentations
13 March 2025Dated presentation slide set
Community Engaged Art and Social Science
Midwest Sociological Society · Chicago, Illinois
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.
Worldbuilding, futuring, and speculative design to co-imagine equitable futures
Source & open details
The source establishes a presentation of the methods; it does not establish that attendees played the cards at this event.
“Introduction – Overview,” reference to a March 2025 Midwest sociological talk Community Engaged Art and Social Science, Midwest Sociological Society slides, pp. 1, 28, 77
17 September 2025Dated presentation slide set
Playing for Perspectives: Growing Systems Thinking in the Virtual Farm of the Future
No Coast SciComm symposium · city not recorded
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.
MuMu, systems thinking, and playful science communication
Source & open details
The event city and whether attendees used the deck during this presentation are not established.
Playing for Perspectives, No Coast SciComm symposium slides, pp. 1, 40, 85
1 April 2026Dated conference talk script
“Playing with” Creative Engagement
Great Plains Futures Conference · venue to confirm
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.
Creative public engagement and collective futures
Source & open details
The script establishes the scheduled talk and content; the venue is not given.
“Playing with” Creative Engagement, Great Plains Futures Conference script, 1 April 2026
Related embodied practice
These projects inform the wider embodied practice. Their inclusion does not claim that every session used the card deck.
Date to confirmRetrospective method-development account
HATCH worldbuilding session
Venue not recorded
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.
Collective worldbuilding
Source & open details
No date or place is recorded here. Direct use of the current card deck is not established.
Card-development discussion, “Transcript from zoom from oct 14” Speculative Design Cards SmithBendix Edgeworks, post-PLF reflection
Multiple sessions · documented in January 2025Manuscript project account
Speculative Robotics Lab Pop-Up
University of Nebraska–Lincoln Innovation Campus
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.
Encountering: live action robotic roleplay and care
Source & open details
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.
Performing the What-If, Ash Eliza Smith and Julia McQuillan, §§3–5
Multiple community interviews · 2024 project referenceManuscript project account
Southern Devices
Western North Carolina; Optimist Park
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.
Moving with: dance, place, infrastructure, and the drone
Source & open details
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.
Performing the What-If, Ash Eliza Smith and Julia McQuillan, §§3–5
Multiple playtests · 2025 project referenceManuscript project and fieldwork account
MuMu: Worlds of Connections
Cedar Point Biological Station (fieldwork); playtest venues not listed
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.
Becoming-with: a multispecies XR world
Source & open details
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.
Performing the What-If, Ash Eliza Smith and Julia McQuillan, §§3–5
Multiple workshops · 2024 publication referencePublished project account and workshop-development record
The Middle / rural community futuring
Alliance and Nebraska’s Panhandle · specific venues not recorded
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.
Community health and preferable local futures
Source & open details
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.
11 June 2022Public project account and workshop photograph
Radio Play · ISEA2022
CCCB · Barcelona, Spain
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.
Participatory worldbuilding, collective performance, and human–machine co-authorship
Source & open details
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.
17 July 2025Dated public event account and workshop photographs
Live Action Robotic Role Play · Kiewit Luminarium
Kiewit Luminarium · Omaha, Nebraska
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.
Multispecies care and live action robotic roleplay
Source & open details
This is a documented robotic-roleplay workshop. The source does not establish use of the card deck at this particular session.
Teaching dates to confirmPublic teaching portfolio and project documentation
Edgeland Futurism
UC San Diego · San Diego, California
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.
Borders, place, and speculative futures
Source & open details
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.
Fieldwork dates to confirmPublic project account and project-owner clarification
Seabreeze Bop City
Seabreeze, North Carolina · specific fieldwork sites not recorded
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.
Student fieldwork, community histories, land, and preferable futures
Source & open details
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.
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Reading this history
Dates are event dates where a source gives them. A document date, project-reference year, planned session, or unknown date is labeled as such. A workshop guide documents an activity’s design; it does not by itself establish what every participant did or what resulted.
Related projects show the broader performance and worldbuilding practice described in Performing the What-If, by Ash Eliza Smith and Julia McQuillan. They are not counted as proof that the deck was used at every rehearsal or playtest.
Public event pages are linked when available. Each entry also identifies its supporting project source. More exact dates, venues, and iterations can be added as the record develops.