What can encourage diehard lawn owners to try something new? Can cultivating a meadow be sexy? How can the toxicity of the pesticide-maintained monocultural lawn be exposed for the devastating and harmful environmental catastrophe that it is? This project tackles the toxicity of the suburban lawn.

It is estimated that monocultural lawns take up 1.9-2% of all land surface in the US, about 50 million acres, or the size of Georgia. 35% of Baltimore County land is private lawn turf. The practice of keeping a tidy, clean, pristine, well-maintained lawn is so ubiquitous, it can often feel hard to imagine an alternative.

<font face=”inherit”>Playing on artist Maia Chao’s “Look at Art. Get Paid” project, “Kill your lawn; get paid!” is an art-exchange offering where artists offer alternatives to suburban lawn-devotees. Canvasing in specific county neighborhoods, a team of eco-art-stewards will offer lawn owners one of the following services:

• Money (or art) in exchange for lawn to meadow conversion
• The opportunity to display a sculpture on their lawn that, from their precarity and size, will discourage and disrupt mowing and treatment cycles, allowing weedy natives to return (inspired by Ellie Iron’s Lawn (Re)Disturbance laboratory)
• Community movement / dance workshops to encourage re-imagination and transformation

nextepochseedlibrary.com

Lawn (Re)Disturbance Laboratory – A collaboration with seeds, time, and weeds

Lawn (Re)Disturbance Laboratory – A collaboration with seeds, time, and weeds

Hi everyone!

Please join us on Wednesday, April 8th at 10 am at Morgan State University for a River Reimagining Workshop with the Jones Falls 2076 project. This is a speculative design project to envision aspirational and quixotic futures for the river in 2076, half a century from now. Over the course of this year, our River Reimagining workshops, art exhibitions, discussions, and publications will encourage radical dreaming and summon collective action on the future of the Jones Falls. In our workshops, participants are invited to think beyond the status quo and share their creative, dream-like, radical, unexpected visions for the future of the Jones Falls.

Ideas generated in the workshops will be featured in Confluence: Reimagining Baltimore’s Waterways, a forthcoming exhibition at AREA 405 opening on May 8, 2026. Each 90-minute workshop is limited to 25–30 participants to engender creativity, participation, and collaboration among a specific stakeholder group. The Reimagining River Workshops are free, but registration is required as space is limited. This workshop on April 8th is specifically for students and educators, so please share with anyone you know! Use the link below to register!

https://community.ecodesigncollective.org/event/workshop-3-river-reimagining-workshop-imagining-alternative-futures-for-the-jones-falls-river/

community.ecodesigncollective.org

Workshop #3: River Reimagining Workshop: Imagining alternative futures for the Jones Falls River

Ready to dream? River Reimagining Workshop: Imagining alternative futures for the Jones Falls River You’re invited to participate in our series of River Reimagining Workshops, along with collaborators from Morgan State University School of Architecture + Planning. WORKSHOP #3: FOR … Continue reading

<font color=”#2a2a2a”>Are you excited about becoming an ambassador for climate storytelling in your community? Join Climate Stories Project and participants from around the world for a 3-part free online training series to learn about climate storytelling, develop interview skills, and record and share climate stories.</font>

<font color=”#2a2a2a”>As a Climate Stories Ambassador you will:</font>

• <font color=”#2a2a2a”>Craft and share your own climate story</font>
• <font color=”#2a2a2a”>Receive training and guidance to conduct climate story interviews</font>​
• <font color=”#2a2a2a”>Connect with other Climate Story Ambassadors from around the world</font>
• <font color=”#2a2a2a”>Learn valuable environmental communication skills</font>
• <font color=”#2a2a2a”>Promote an inclusive and effective movement to confront the climate crisis</font>

​Participation is free and open to all. Ambassadors who submit their own story and at least one interview will receive a certificate of completion of the Climate Stories Ambassadors initiative.

<font color=”#2a2a2a” size=”4″>The three 90-minute training sessions are:
</font><font color=”#2a2a2a”>​</font>
<font color=”#2a2a2a”>1) Thursday, April 23, 12 noon Eastern Time: Telling your Own Climate Story</font>
<font color=”#2a2a2a”>2) Thursday, May 7, 12 noon Eastern Time: Conducting Climate Story Interviews</font>
<font color=”#2a2a2a”>3) Thursday, May 21, 12 noon Eastern Time: Leveraging Climate Storytelling for Positive Change</font>
<font color=”#2a2a2a”>​</font>
<font color=”#2a2a2a”>It is strongly preferred but not required that you attend all three training sessions. If you’d like to apply for the Spring 2026 Climate Stories Ambassadors cohort, please fill out this application form: </font>

https://forms.gle/7CJn3WZ2czSSLDcN9

climatestoriesproject.org

Climate Stories Ambassadors

The Climate Stories Ambassadors program, a community-building climate storytelling initiative of Climate Stories Project

Future of Us is a nonprofit coalition-led civic initiative that is inviting the public to join us in reimagining what could be. The initiative is anchored by a 9-day festival, launching this summer in San Francisco on the 250th anniversary of the U.S. through storytelling, creative inquiry, and exploration of civic futures.

For the past year – from Sitka to St. Augustine – we’ve been touring the US hosting conversations for communities to imagine the futures they actually want.

People have been sketching, brainstorming, and dreaming up speculative stories across four themes: Social Futures, Green Futures, Media Futures, and Science & Tech Futures.

Now we’re inviting you to turn these visions into works of art.

We’re hiring illustrators and digital artists (or anyone whose work can be easily digitized) to translate community visions and sketches into beautiful, original cover art capturing each story.

Your work will be exhibited at the Future of Us festival in San Francisco this July in what we’re calling the “Hall of Anythings”.

It will also be shared as part of a public archive of civic imagination, launching on the country’s 250th anniversary. You can help us turn the gaze of this milestone moment towards what people want for the future of their country and communities.

⚡ The Basics:
$2,500 (flat rate) for 4 pieces · all styles welcome · human-made · US-based · finals due May 15

We’re moving quickly and artists will be invited on a rolling basis, so make sure you submit your portfolio asap.

And share with all the creative civic dreamers, visual storytellers, and future builders you know!

Learn more & submit here: https://www.future-of-us.com/artist-submissions

future-of-us.com

Artist Submissions — FUTURE OF US

Artist Submissions — FUTURE OF US

How do you overcome a by-design sense of paralysis and barriers to disentangle from the system of oppression?

I invite you to a 5-week course designed to be experimental and experiential, unlearning institutionalized knowledge and recognizing different forms of knowing and being.
Deepen your conscious and unconscious awareness of the systemic patterns of power. Work on how to avoid replicating tools of the dominant system, moving away from performative action and care, and centering underrepresented voices.

As a climate creative it’s incredibly powerful to use art as an act of resistance, but rooting that art in a decolonial action allows us for collective liberation.

If you are ready to join a heart-centered community, sign up today: https://pci.jotform.com/form/260263669422358
Sliding scale, payment plans, and scholarships are available!

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“Feeling Tingly?” will be a multi-sensory installation that explores overconsumption by centering materials that reflect the pervasiveness of synthetic substances in contemporary life. This project will examine how everyday plastic waste can carry new meanings when encountered through unexpected sensory experiences. Inspired by ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response), the work invites viewers to explore the nuances of bodily sensation through hypnotic sounds, textures, and visuals designed to evoke “tingles”, a rush of dopamine through the body. Rather than imagining a return to a pristine or waste-free world, this work proposes alternative ways of being-with the waste and pollution we inherit, inviting viewers to reflect on their own consumer realities and relationship to pleasure through tactile, visual, and sensory encounters.

Hi All– This is Alexi putting on my artist hat & hoping I am finally navigating the forum correctly.

The problem I am engaged with:

I am thinking a lot about our capacity to imagine a world where the climate crisis is actually solved. I have found it is incredibly difficult for most people to do. For many, it is easier to imagine the destruction of humanity than humanity living in harmony with nature. There are many who find solace in this ecofascist rhetoric and consider themselves at peace with humanity’s demise. I am interested in adreinne maree brown’s imagination battle– and trying to provide opportunities to imagine the survival of humanity AND nature.

Project:

The project I am proposing is a solarpunk dollhouse.

I believe play is a great space for us to expand our imaginations. The first barbie dreamhouse was incredibly powerful– allowing young women to imagine themselves as single homeowners, yet unheard of at the time. I find a dollhouse is a powerful way for us to imagine new ways to live.

The solarpunk dollhouse could take the form of upcycling a found dollhouse as a single unique interactive sculpture, collaborating with other artists on individual rooms. This could also take the form of making multiple copies of a pop-up book dollhouse, again inviting different artists to take their own illustrative spin on different rooms. I am happy to pursue the latter if it counts as more ‘design oriented.’

In the spirit of devising and enacting antidotes to toxicity, I am proposing the construction of a comprehensive guide to highlight many of the organizations, groups, initiatives, and ideas that are floating around the Balt-Metro area. The guide would be comprised of a sort of practical “yellow pages” that indexes those that are actively working on antidotes themselves. Whether it is a mainstay institution like Second Chance, a national network org with a local chapter like the Network for Developing Conscious Communities, or the uber-local Baltimore Free Farm, there are a plethora of people countering toxicity in one form or another. My vision for the guide would to create a sort of panopticon, which would put forth a periodical that illuminates and highlights the best of Bmore. It would ideally be produced in a solely physical format, as the digital space is just as prone to intrinsic toxicity as the physical world; but I would be amenable to publishing a digital component if the need arose.

Are you an artist inspired by nature?👀

Do you have art to display and share with the world?

Carrie Murray Nature Center wants YOU to participate in an ART MARKET!☺️🌸

Claiming a spot at the Spring Equinox Celebration and Art Market is completely FREE! 🤩🌳

Please share with fellow artists who would be interested in this community event on April 25 from 12-4pm! 🌹

❗️Email melissa.neill@baltimorecity.gov for more information and to secure your spot!