The term evokes the detritus of human society—disposable, scattered, left behind—while also grounding us in the layered ecologies of leaf litter, compost, and the forest floor…
Litter is what remains, what accumulates, what breaks down to nourish new life. It is waste, but otherwise. Litter, literally, is what is left.
The word itself carries the trace of an older meaning—a bedding filled with hay, a space of rest and renewal. Litter is not just debris but proliferation. The litter of animals—their broods and kin—points to life continuing despite the wreckage. Litter is a scattering, a remix. It is phonetically close to letter, suggestive of writing itself: the inscription of meaning upon a surface, the act of leaving something behind even after a collapse.
In systems ecology, we know that radical change can emerge through the accumulation of small acts, through gathering up and reworking litter across species and scales. This, too, is our vision of aesthetic litter—a jumbling of ideas, a compost writing where discarded fragments find new resonance, where scraps accumulate into unexpected patterns, where words, like fallen leaves, layer and decay, feeding future growth.
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Interested in design, degrowth, ecology, or any of the countless threads running through the EDC? We invite you to submit a piece for our new online magazine, Litter.
We seek both long-form and short-form contributions that explore these levers. This might take the form of critical analysis, speculative design, alternative infrastructures of energy, housing, care, or politics. It might be a reflection on recent events, a personal essay, a poem, a drawing, a photo, a video. In systems ecology, we know that radical change can emerge through the accumulation of small acts, through gathering up and reworking litter across species and scales.
This, too, is our vision of aesthetic litter—a jumbling of ideas, a compost writing where discarded fragments find new resonance, where scraps accumulate into unexpected patterns, where words, like fallen leaves, layer and decay, feeding future growth.