Litter Spring/Summer 2025
rethinking ecological design during a time of reactionary politics
a letter from the editor
Welcome to the inaugural issue of Litter, the journal of the Ecological Design Collective (EDC). This publication emerges from a shared commitment to fostering environmental resilience, justice, and imagination in an era where such aspirations often feel increasingly elusive. Since its founding, the EDC has served as a space for envisioning possible futures, a community that brings together scholars, artists, activists, and designers in pursuit of transformative change. But as reactionary forces take hold across the globe, narrowing the spaces for critical thought and collective action, the urgency of our work has only grown. We find ourselves in a moment of profound challenge. The erosion of democratic governance, the entrenchment of extractive economies, and the suppression of alternative voices threaten to foreclose futures grounded in multi-species justice. Yet, even as dominant systems constrain our capacity to imagine, the need for radical, collective visioning has never been greater. In the face of these pressures, this issue of Litter seeks to carve out a space for ideas, strategies, and creative interventions that push against the limits of the present. This issue is not merely a response to the conditions we face—it is an assertion that other futures remain possible. Prompted by the politics of today, we invite you to join us in exploring urgent and necessary questions.
We are thrilled to share this first issue with you, and we invite you to join us in building a journal that refuses to accept the foreclosure of the future.
What modes of resistance, refusal, and invention remain open in the face of reactionary constraint?
Turn Them Into Thinkers
Kai Crockett
Spillover
Kai Crockett
Lia Purpura
Anthropomorphism Today
A black bird sits alone on the sill. Carved by artist Salvador Romero from a stone he found that suggested bird. Just a hop-skip away from alone is lonely. It’s her downturned head, the angle of her gaze. What she knows but can’t say. From the other side, she’s not lonely at all. Just quiet. Older. Dignified. If I follow along the line of her neck, there’s a vein of ore where a wing folds in and wedge of tail-feathers that keeps her steady.
How can we sustain and expand radical political and ecological imaginaries when so much is pressing in to foreclose them?
Leaving Home by Kai Crockett
Fixing Ecologies on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
In Fixing Ecologies on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, artist June Julian presents her body of work—her visual wish for equilibrium in the world.
Blue Balloon in White Pine
Lia Purpura
It’s the blue of hot metal against the damp blue of sky, a flutter in the white pine, a bright tatter high up. When it catches the sun, it hurts my eyes. If I angle one way, I can block it with branches; if I shift back in my chair, there it is again, sudden and sharp as a paper cut.
It could be beautiful the way the scrap lifts as the branches lift – how anything light proves the existence of wind. Because, look, the breeze nudges and plays — and am I not playful? Have I not trained all my life to see the brief gestures of least things in their fullness? To be moved by the wind’s caress? Rearranged by words whispered into my hair? And if the world is not what I make it, haven’t I tried to make what I see? To make myself more and more seen?
How do we continue to build solidarities—across movements, geographies, and intellectual traditions—to sustain the work of environmental justice?
I Brushfire
Kai Crockett
On a cliff. Dead trees lean and provide some shade, the caves directly below
provide more. The valley awaits drying fast in the midday sun. Out there, leaves begin to crisp and steam, and a thick fog of smoke wisps settle in. Two surveyors prepare their descent, fret over air samples, and seek out the nearest crevasse. The suits are about ready to be shed, and rest is much needed, no data today
other than the route.
A recording documents a place in time, the images stabilize and solidify.
II The Belly of
the Beast
Kai Crockett
In the shallows we stare out at the subsurface flats, and think we see distant hills. Scattered clouds form in bursts of unflowing wind cooking in the hot summer sun and in the daytime lighting bolts form above the sand making travel dangerous. The night time brings tumultuous waves and strange shadows that move like disappearing pheasants into the bramble. Those who know the routes search old remains of bio-engineered beasts for knowledge about the old world before the winds and waves changed. Those who don’t must face the elements.
Familiar coasts. and unusual reflection patterns, the images shimmer and dissolve.
Roundtable Discussion
The Ecological Design Collective held a critical roundtable discussion exploring the constraints and possibilities of ecological design, activism, and community-building in an era of resurgent reactionary politics. Watch the discussion between Dr. Anand Pandian, Dr. Nicole Labruto, Dr. Samia Kirchner, Dr. Sam Myers, and Dr. PJ Brendese.
This is awesome!