WORKSHOP Proposal Mesh Festival 
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Basel, Switzerland
Burcu Nimet Dumlu 
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2026


 

Contemporary cities are largely shaped by anthropocentric narratives of efficiency, progress, and economic growth, privileging human control while marginalizing ecological complexity and multispecies life. Climate-induced disruptions, such as flooding, soil degradation, and food system instability, reveal the limits of this model, demonstrating that cities are porous, interdependent ecological assemblages shaped by water, soil, nonhuman species, and atmospheric forces beyond human design.
 

This workshop invites participants to rethink climate adaptation by approaching cities as more-than-human habitats rather than exclusively human-centered infrastructures. Drawing on multispecies theory, feminist care ethics, and design research, the workshop builds on Haraway’s call to “stay with the trouble” and Puig de la Bellacasa’s notion of “matters of care” to foreground care, reciprocity, and interdependence as design concerns.
 

Through hands-on narrative and mnemonic mapping exercises, participants will collaboratively surface overlooked ecological stories embedded in urban environments. These mappings attend to spontaneous vegetation, soils, biodiversity, and urban wildlife as active agents in climate adaptation rather than passive background elements. By working with memory, narrative, and situated knowledge, the workshop challenges hierarchical urban logics and opens space for alternative imaginaries of climate-resilient futures.

The workshop proposes a multispecies cartographic framework that connects design, governance, and ecological processes, aiming to close not only loops of material flow but also those of responsibility, care, and regenerative urban coexistence.