Ecotopian Toolkit

Facing contemporary ecological challenges with critically attuned and creatively oriented tools

"Ecotopian Toolkit" logo.

Click here to visit the Ecotopian Toolkit Website!

Visit ecotopiantoolkit.org for an extensive look into the project and living archive!

 

Colorful illustration of a green heron next to the Ecotopian Toolkit robot logo.

We're so excited to announce this year's Toolmakers!

Austen Camille, Blue Lab, e+i Studio, Richard Hamilton, and Bobby Haskell
Read more in Field Notes

In cooperation with the Morris Arboretum & Gardens, the Penn Program for Environmental Humanities invites you to participate in a project to create Ecotopian Tools for Multispecies Flourishing. Successful proposals for Ecotopian Tools will be explored in designer-led public workshops at Morris in spring 2024 and will be documented in a print catalog and also included in the expanding digital “living archive,” the Ecotopian Toolkit for the Anthropocene. 

 

Schedule of Workshops

We hope you’ll join us for all of this year’s workshops for Ecotopian Tools for Multispecies Flourishing!

Learn more on our Events Page.

Saturday 5/11
10 AM - e+i Studio: Multispecies Totem
Noon - Bobby Haskell: Saproxylic Sculptures

Saturday 6/15
10 AM
Blue Lab: Popup Story Patch
Richard Hamilton: Auscultation Points
Austen Camille: An Exercise in Imagination: It is very possible that over half of the world’s species live under the surface of the soil

Flyer for 2024 Ecotopian Toolkit Workshops.

2022 Ecotopian Toolkit

  • Nancy Agati, Basins + Borders
  • Eli Brown, Another Mother: A Database of All Trans Organisms on Earth
  • Juan Hurtado Salazar, Watershed Mobile Nursery
  • Jacques-Jean "JJ" Tiziou, Walk Around Philadelphia— Ecotopian Toolkit
  • Fereshteh Toosi, Water Radio: Delaware River
Cover of the 2022 Ecotopian Toolkit Catalog.
Check out the 2022 Ecotopian Toolkit catalogue here. 

 

2022 Ecotopian Toolkit Exhibition Reception at Independence Seaport Museum

Friday, May 20, 2022 we celebrated the opening of phase 2 of the Ecotopian Toolkit exhibition with our partners at ISM and four of our amazing Toolmakers!

Along with the exhibit, free workshops with toolmakers Nancy Agati (June 4), Jacques-Jean Tiziou (June 15), Juan Hurtado Salazar & Fereshteh Toosi (both June 18) were presented at the museum.

Three vsitors to a museum look at exhibition text on a white wall with colorful text and icons.

Visitors check out the exhibition at the Independence Seaport Museum

Visitors to a museum mingle in a gallery with a display of a historic boat.

Visitors mingle in the gallery

A blond woman and a man with dark hair and glasses have a friendly conversation in a museum gallery.

PPEH Founding Director Bethany Wiggin and Toolmaker Juan Hurtado Salazar

A man with grey hair and a mustache gives remarks at a podium in a museum gallery.

Remarks from ISM Assistant Director of Exhibitions and Design Dan Kennedy and CEO Peter Seibert

A woman wearing a black blazer with her hair pulled back gives remarks at a podium in a museum gallery.

Dr. Bethany Wiggin

A man in a black face mask holds up a map of a river while giving remarks at podium in a museum gallery.

Toolmaker JJ Tiziou

A woman with short dark hair in a green floral shirt gives remarks at a podium in a museum gallery.

Toolmaker Nancy Agati

A man in a yellow shirt puts his hand to his heart as he gives remarks at a podium in a museum gallery.

Toolmaker Juan Hurtado Salazar

A man in a shirt with small white dots laughs as he gives remarks at a podium in a museum gallery.

Toolmaker Eli Brown

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2018 Ecotopian Toolkit

  • Deirdre Murphy, "Mapping Movements: The Invisible Highways of Urban Birds at the Water's Edge"

  • Ethnologica, "River Beasts and Besties: Exploring our Fears of the Deep"

  • FICTILIS, "Wastewater Walk"

  • Environmental Performance Agency, "Embodied Scientist Parkour"

  • Floating Studio for Dark Ecologies (Dylan Gauthier, Kendra Sullivan, and Marina Zurkow), "D.I.Y Post-Natural Ecosystems: A Field Guide to Field Guides"

Ecotopian Toolkit Catalogue

                                                            Check out the 2018 Ecotopian Toolkit catalogue here. 

2017 Ecotopian Toolkit

  • Cecily Anderson, "Illustrated Map of the Lower Schuylkill River" 

  • Joanne Douglas, "Indicator Fibers"

  • Caroline Hesse, "SUSPEND"

  • Gabriel Kaprielian, "Floating Habitat Pods"

  • Mandy Katz, "Botanical Field Guide"

  • Jacob Rivkin and Eric Blasso, "Bio Pool"

Cover
Mandy Katz, Pocket Guide to Plants of the Lower Schuylkill, Ecotopian Toolkit 2017

Download Field Guide

Cecily Anderson, Tidal Schuylkill, Ecotopian Toolkit 2017
Cecily Anderson, Tidal Schuylkill, Ecotopian Toolkit 2017

Download Map

Click here for the 2017 Ecotopian Toolkit for the Anthropocene Conference full site.

Media Coverage

Katherine Unger Baillie (July 19, 2022) Grappling with A Watershed’s Uncertain Environmental Future. Penn Today

Katherine Unger Baillie (April 21, 2022) The Clean Water Act at 50. Penn Today

Sophia Schmidt (February 26, 2022) Got An Idea to Address the Impacts of Climate Change Along the Delaware? You Could Win Money to Make It Happen. WHYY

Katherine Unger Baillie (January 31, 2022) A Call for Tools to Navigate the Future of the Delaware River Watershed. Penn Today

​​​​​​Katherine Unger Baillie (April 10, 2017) Penn Program in Environmental Humanities Competiton Winners Presented at Bartram's Garden. Penn News

Samantha Melamed (May 25, 2017) A Giant Water Filter for the Schuylkill? Philly Artists Respond to Environmental Challenge. Philly.com

Bethany Wiggin (Spring 2017) Forgotten Places and Radical Hope on Philadelphia's Tidal Schuylkill River. Open Rivers: Rethinking The Mississippi, no. 6