The Yumiverse
Set in the year 2075, The Yumiverse reimagines Earth after nuclear war and ecological collapse, where long-standing power structures crumble and humanity is thrust into the realm of spirit. What was once “background”—mushrooms, birds, insects, rivers, trees—now rise as sovereign. Giant ants walk as elders. Blades of grass sing. The Council of Trees no longer offers oxygen as spirit reclaims its breath; most humans, now droid-like, must earn breath through rituals of reverence, harvested from wildflowers that bloom only in hidden fissures. Wooden totems are worn like prayer. Technology falters. The line between myth and matter dissolves.
In this world—reborn in the image of Earth’s oldest intelligences—survival is not conquest, but communion.
The Yumiverse is neither escape nor apocalypse, but a remembering—a return to the transformative power of reciprocity and listening. An invitation to imagine otherwise, and to begin again.
Yumarlin “Yumi” Rodriguez is a multidisciplinary artist, environmental advocate, and worldbuilder exploring the intersection of art, ecology, and spirit. With roots in fine arts, climate science, veterinary medicine, and yoga, her work honors the often-overlooked wisdom of fungi, insects, flora, wild creatures, mythology, and folklore. Drawing from her Dominican American heritage, Afro-Caribbean lineage, and lived experience, her practice often lives outside traditional art spaces and is guided by animistic worldviews—ancient philosophies that see spirit and intelligence in all forms of life—shaped equally by scientific inquiry, spiritual reverence, and cultural storytelling.
Through multimedia, storyboarding, and animation, her ongoing body of work, —The Yumiverse— transforms climate grief and anxiety into visions of hope, ecological rebirth, and ancestral remembrance. Resisting dominant climate narratives of shame, resistance, and technological quick-fixes, it instead centers radical interdependence, the magic of creation, and the power of transformation. Through what she calls the “animatic sciences” (animation reimagined as animism in motion), Yumi approaches storytelling as a sacred act—a digital expression of spirit that re-enchants and restores relationships across species, technologies, and traditions.
In The Yumiverse, climate anxiety becomes a seed for imagining otherwise: a place where grief opens into reverence, reciprocity shapes survival, and hope, magic, and creativity, are not naïve, but necessary.
