The Ecological Design Collective invites contributions for the Fall/Winter 2025–2026 digital magazine Litter, centered on the theme “Antidotes to Toxicity.” This edition explores how we might identify, imagine, and design responses to both literal and figurative toxicities from polluted environments and harmful systems, to social, political, and psychological poisonings.
Toxicity transcends the chemical realm: it infiltrates institutions, discourse, bodies, and imaginaries. Yet, toxicity can also generate insights, revealing the fractures in our systems and prompting us to envision new pathways. Responses might range from small, resilient gestures of restoration, to large-scale ecological and social interventions that dismantle harmful designs and rebuild conditions for collective well-being.
What We Seek
Contributors are invited to engage the theme in creative and critical ways, whether through:
- Essays, critical reflections, or poetic writing that interrogate or reframe toxicity in ecological, political, or social contexts.
- Speculative design concepts or project proposals (real or imagined) that offer practical or visionary antidotes.
- Visual works, including design visuals, illustrations, or infographics, that render toxicity and antidote in sensory, affective terms.
- Narratives of lived experience, of healing practices, or community-based interventions that serve as antidotes.
Submission Formats
- Written pieces: up to 1,500 words.
- Visual submissions: accompanying high-resolution images (300 dpi).
- Hybrid formats: combinations of images + text (e.g., illustrated essays, project presentations).
Submission Deadline & Publication Details
- Deadline: Friday, November 28, 2025.
- Publication: The Fall/Winter issue will be released online in December 2025/January 2026 via the EDC digital platform.
- Contributors will be compensated with a $100 honorarium.
Please send your submission via the Litter submission form.
This issue is a collective inquiry into how design, creativity, and critical thinking can counteract harm in ecological, social, and institutional realms. Through your contribution, you join a community actively seeking regenerative, life-affirming design and narratives for these toxic times