Raissa Xie & Anjali Nair's “american chestnut” is an experimental multimedia collaboration combining poetry, dance, sound, and video. Central to the piece is a poem read in a soundscape, reflecting themes of growth, decay, life, multi-species interconnectedness, and embodying peace alongside community, grief and death.

Interdisciplinary designers and artists Anjali Nair and Raissa Xie create a window into a new world by engaging multiple senses. The embodiment of sound merged with video footage taken by Anjali and Raissa, aims to prompt viewers to be mindful of their own bodies on their journeys to heal in life, and beyond, with the more-than-human so that we might build new relationships to our environments and to one another.

Elijah Valerjev's “In Search of Oysters” follows a man who embarks on an existential journey in a submarine to collect materials for experimental carbon capture. Though the story is set in the year 2075, todays’ rapidity in technological advancements brings some realism to these science-fiction ideas. The short story is interwoven with a unique element of underwater exploration and environmental preservation that humanizes a climate future. Throughout this trip, the protagonist grapples with drug withdrawals, forced addiction recovery, and societal isolation while interacting with an AI companion. The narrative unfolds through a series of first-person journal entries, depicting a highly self-analytical perspective on what it means to be accepted. As he searches for carbon capture materials, he develops an evolving understanding of humanity. Paired with a modern take on his growing knowledge of old philosophical views, he confronts change in an absurd setting, viewing progress through his physical health and the manipulation of his surroundings.

Kaila Akome's “Renewsance” provides commentary on the fast fashion industry through recycling imagery of the Renaissance movement. The piece – a mix of collage and tapestry – uses found material gathered from secondhand sources, and aims to utilize fabric that otherwise likely would be shipped to perish in African landfills overseas, polluting the soil and sea. Renewsance draws from imagery of the “Birth of Venus” by Sandro Botticelli. Here the woman featured has green skin and hair reminiscent of seafoam. Meant to represent an African setting, the work explores the idea of a future wherein through mindful consumption adaptation and reuse the cycle of waste the future poses an ecological future in harmony with nature. The renaissance movement is classified by imagery of elegance, purity, divinity, and often represented by elite or divine figures. However, Renewsance reflects on the lifestyle and consumption patterns of the modern day wealthy by portraying the remenants of abundance. There are two paths for the clutter that exists and continues to build: as a stream of waste that will pollute the planet, or as an opportunity for reuse and renewal.

Cairo Croon's "Atmosphere: Re-ignition Sequence" is a five-song reimagining of his original album, “Atmosphere” released in 2021.

While the original album finds solace and content in death and in the afterlife, Re-ignition Sequence takes a hopeful look toward the future. There is an implication that the work of reconstruction and sustainability is brutal and will require everything we have - our very lives - but will ultimately lead to a better world for our children.

The centerpiece of Re-ignition Sequence, Casanova, is where all the concepts of the album - love, loss, queerness, revolution, death and fear, merge into a fluffy and contemplative 3 minute track with an accompanying visual.

Olivia Zhang's "Over the Years" is a multimedia artwork that explores data visualization as an avenue for climate storytelling. Inspired by the role of location: how we interact with each other, with our histories, and with our environment, this artwork features a timelapse of projected flooding from sea level rise up to 10 feet in the Everglades in South Florida, a line graph of sea levels off the coast of Southeast Florida from 1994 to 2023, overlaid with a personal portrait. Accompanying these visuals is a short poem that delves into the artist’s personal fears and hopes regarding the escalating climate crisis. Through this fusion of data visualization and intimate self-expression, the artwork seeks to humanize the often impersonal nature of climate science, making the pressing issues of environmental change more relatable and emotionally resonant. By intertwining the stark realities of climate data with the deeply human response to our uncertain future, "Over the Years" transforms abstract visuals of “change for the worse” into a narrative that speaks to both urgency and our shared humanity.

“Black Lives in Green Chains'' delves into the violence built into the contemporary urban environment of Wilmington, Delaware, drawing attention to how the traumas of living in a high-risk inner city can foreshadow imprisonment, pain, and loss. This work also acts as a call to action for a naturalized, demilitarized, and humanized environment for Wilmington’s future. The artist led an ethnographic survey to gather insights from students, community leaders, police, and more; these insights were translated into a song reflecting deep-seated anger and multifaceted critique, underscoring a need for change. Through original music written, produced, and performed by the artist (with a feature from Yung Raylo, a collaborating vocalist), and a written opinion editorial that captures archival evidence of Wilmington’s urban violence and the community response to it, “Black Lives in Green Chains” not only explores the multidimensional contributions to Wilmington’s gun violence crisis, but proposes critical solutions that can pave a path away from it and toward a greener future.

Laken Sylvander's “Toposomatic Inheritance” offers a material approach to future inheritance of place and body through the construction of garment. The Black Mountain Toposomatic Coat (topo - place, location; soma - body) is an experimental garment meditating across constructions of heritage, colonial ancestry, environmental violence under capitalism and 'rights' to place through private ownership and inheritance. It is accompanied by a poem from the vantage of the artist passing the coat down to future inheritors - not inherently biological descendants - in the year 2075, recounting her own memory-keeping of the land and speculatively addressing how ownership and collective stewardship have changed across her lifetime. “Toposomatic Inheritance” reminds us that we link place with body all the time - coordinates and maps are tattoo’d on our skin, we wear gemstones (harvested from near and far) in our ears, around our necks and fingers. Too often, contemporary people are far removed from the places that make our everyday Earth lens: our clothing.

Robert J. Dellinger's “Morir Soñando” transports us to decolonized Quisqueya (formerly the Dominican Republic) in the year 2100. Here, an Abuelita weaves together tales of cultural movements and collective awakenings that spanned the world and stirred the hearts of the sleeping dreamers. Named after the traditional Dominican drink, which translates to “to die dreaming,” this narrative highlights the cultural significance of imagined futures, the passing down of knowledge from generation to generation, and the awakening of an “unconscious” culture in the pursuit of a dream. The drink’s simple ingredients—orange juice, milk, and sugar—reflect the harmony achieved by blending seemingly incompatible elements through the bonds of sugar.

Asenette Ruiz’s “Resistencia y Alegría” intertwines themes of reproductive and environmental justice through a dynamic visual lens on Houston, TX. This visual underscores the potential of place as a site of injustice (on land, on women) but also a site of healing and joy. With a nod to the power of women in justice movements, particularly the Ni Una Menos movement in Latin America - reflected in the purple color scheme which often show up in protests against feminicide - the work draws connections between Houston’s large Latine population and ancestral roots, and the power that comes from those places and collective action. By highlighting both the challenges and moments of jov and empowerment in our present, “Resistencia y Alegría” invites viewers to consider what a continued struggle for both environmental and reproductive justice look like in our future, and how to embrace resilience in alignment with nature to build that just future.