Blue Lab is thrilled and honored to announce that the lab has been selected by the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities (PPEH) to be a 2024 Ecotopian Toolmaker under its multi-year project, Ecotopian Toolkit.
Funded by an award from PPEH, the lab will organize the first instance of the Blue Lab Popup Story Patch at Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia. We'll announce the exact date of the workshop soon.
The theme of this year's toolmaking is "Ecotopian Tools for Multispecies Flourishing." Set within the curated landscape of the arboretum, the Blue Lab Popup Story Patch will create for visitors a space that is both part of and apart from their experiences of nature–a space of generative self-reflection and freeplay that reframes their relationships to the multispecies worlds around them.
Emphasizing imagination, memory, speculation and active engagement, visitors to the Blue Lab Popup Story Patch will be invited to participate in conversations about individual plants and animals who have captivated their imaginations; these could be more-than-human family members (past or present), lively presences in yards or neighborhoods, and reminders of ecological loss or of places far from home. For visitors who want to participate, their stories will be recorded and become part of a living multimedia love letter to the more-than-human world.
"We're grateful to PPEH for this opportunity to develop Blue Lab's inaugural public art and engagement project," said Professor Allison Carruth, co-founder and PI of Blue Lab and Professor and Director of Princeton's Program in Environmental Studies. "We envision bringing the Popup Story Patch to communities around New Jersey and beyond. And the support provided through the Ecotopian Toolkit will allows us to prototype this novel mode of participatory storytelling alongside other artists and art groups. Our aim is to create an immersive experience that is at once playful, provocative and meaningful."
For updates and information, refer to our page dedicated to the Blue Lab Popup Story Patch.