🌱 The Ecological Design Collective is a global platform for people reimagining the future of life on Earth. Born in a time of crisis, we bring together researchers, artists, designers, and activists to explore new ways of thinking, making, and living.
🌀 On our site, you’ll find journals, exhibits, groups, events, and collaborative opportunities — all rooted in ecological care and collective creativity.
✨ Join us to connect, contribute, and co-create: /
Baltimore folks! Please join us this Friday evening for the opening of CONFLUENCE: REIMAGINING BALTIMORE'S WATERWAYS at the Area 405 gallery in Baltimore (405 E. Oliver St). The exhibition opens May 8th and runs through Jun 12th. More details at the link below and in my bio.
CONFLUENCE brings together contemporary artists, local university students, and community voices to explore the past, present, and future of Baltimore’s waterways. The exhibition is part of the broader Jones Falls 2076 project, a year-long initiative imagining the future of the Jones Falls river through art, design, and public engagement, led by MICA designer Lee Davis, public artist Bruce Willen (creator of Ghost Rivers), and Johns Hopkins anthropologist Anand Pandian.
Jones Falls 2076 is a public imagination campaign to envision alternative futures for this river at the heart of Baltimore and ways of reframing our connection to the watershed. CONFLUENCE will showcase the work of leading environmental artists in the region, the creative work of students at Johns Hopkins University and Morgan State University, and the imaginative outcomes of the series of River Reimagining Workshops that we've held this spring with environmental advocates, civic leaders, designers, and engaged Baltimore residents.
Visitors to the gallery will have the chance to add their own river visions to the exhibit. Private tours can also be arranged, do reach out if interested. Please join us and help shape this ongoing conversation on the future of our waterways. Hope to see you there!
/confluence-reimagining-baltimores-waterways
Join us for a virtual celebration of Earth Day that brings together science, literature, and ecological imagination. This event features a vibrant community of poets, writers, and scholars whose work engages with the natural world across the Mid-Atlantic and beyond. Register on our page!
Join us for the launch of Polluted by Design: Histories of Waste and the Struggle for Environmental Justice in South Baltimore. The project was developed with the guidance of instructors Chloe Ahmann and Anand Pandian and filmmaker Andrea Conte, and explores how waste management policies and unchecked industrial growth have endangered communities across South Baltimore, while amplifying the work of organizers fighting to reclaim their neighborhoods’ futures!
You are invited to Confluence: Reimagining Baltimore’s Waterways, an exhibition at AREA 405 (@_area405_ ), opening on May 8, 2026 and lasting until June 12th. Come view the work of local artists and students, as well as the culmination of the ideas generated during our River Reimagining Workshop series!
Opening reception: 5:00 - 9:00 pm, May 8th, 2026
Credits:
Graphic Designer: Maks Rychlicki
Image 1: “Little Falls” by Ann Margaret Morris
Image 2: “Embodying the Island” by Ana Paula Teixeira and María Luisa “Mussa” Marín
Artists Featured at the Exhibition:
@ann_margaret_morris_drawings@kmkisiel@tayshayra@mmmussa_@baobaobao78@rhearhea__@blackartistresearchspace@__prairiesky__@patrickryanmcminn@jonnamckone@auntiemojo
Tags:
#baltimore #jonesfalls #jonesfalls2076 #artexhibitions #area405
Introducing an online exhibition by Berlin-based artist Anna-Lena Dauber!Through exploring the materiality of the everyday both within private and urban spaces, Anna has created art from collected fragments, making sculptures, photographs, digital collages, paintings, and sound works! To check out the exhibition, please visit our page!
Featuring— @ann_lenelle
Do you love our City, waterways and greenspaces and want to connect with like-minded advocates? Join representatives of the Eco Design Collective, Friends of the Jones Falls and Blue Water Baltimore on March 3rd for some radical thinking about the future of the Jones Falls. Learn more and register at link in bio. #jonesfalls #ecodesigncollective @alainthavan #stonyrun #jonesfalls2076
Artist Ellie Irons (@elslaurel )
will be hosting a workshop at Blue Light Junction and we invite you to participate in this hands-on experience: creating and painting with watercolor paints from regionally-sourced wild and weedy plants. 🌱
Mark your Calendar!
🗓️March 12th, 2026, 6-8 pm
@blue.lightjunction
An artist talk and demo on making plant-based watercolor paints will be followed by an opportunity to experiment with the process in small groups.
Responding to Ellie’s ongoing project Feral Hues on Estuarial Fill, throughout the workshop, we’ll focus on the natural-cultural stories of plants whose green habitats are heavily impacted by human activities, drawing on Ellie’s work along the Hudson/Mahichannituck River in current-day New York State, and participants’ own experiences in current-day Baltimore & beyond.
Copies of the book Feral Hues: A Guide to Painting with Weeds will be available for purchase.
Sponsored by @ecodesigncollective in collaboration with @ecliptaherbal (you must register to join. Link in the bio)
Ellie Irons is an artist, scholar & educator living & working on Mohican land in current-day Troy, New York, USA.
In December 2021, she completed a practice-based PhD at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY), focused on forms of ecosocial art that cultivate plant-human solidarity. She is currently the Co-Director of NATURE Lab at the Sanctuary for Independent Media.
Her most recent publication is the book Feral Hues: A Guide to Painting with Weeds (Publication Studio Hudson, 2023).
#EcoDesign #PlantBasedWatercolors #Feral #NaturalColorPlants PaintingWithWeed
Jones Falls 2076 is a speculative design project to envision aspirational and quixotic futures for the river in 2076, half a century from now. This series of River Reimagining workshops, art exhibitions, discussions, and publications will encourage radical dreaming and summon collective action on the future of the Jones Falls.
Each 90-minute workshop is limited to 25–30 participants to engender creativity, participation, and collaboration among a specific stakeholder group, including: river and watershed advocates, designers and planners, environmental and community activists, students and educators, civic representatives and policymakers, and scientists
Please register for the event on our website!
#ecodesign
We are excited to announce the launch of this pilot cycle of ECC Project Awards! Please scan the QR code or visit our page to learn more about the eligibility criteria as well as steps to apply!
#ecodesign #antidotestotoxicity
We are so excited to share the new Winter/Spring issue of the Litter! The issue presents the works of many different artists surrounding our Antidotes to Toxicity theme and we would love to see your support! Please visit the link in our bio to read!
#sustainability #ecodesign
