What helps, or could help, us to do all of this together on a journey from ‘me’ to ‘we’?

This is a deeper layer of learning behind Stories of Place 2024–2025 Composting #3 | Co-creators as earthworms, so this post will make much more sense if you start there. Our glossary might also help.

Eighteen hours of gathering per year is not a lot of time to nurture a collective culture of challenging our understanding of the world, connecting as Nature, caring across time and acting towards just existence. Our gatherings take place in the evening when our energy is often already depleted from our daytime activities.¹ There is also no expectation for co-creators to join every gathering. Although it doesn’t feel like a lot of time, our monthly rhythm of gatherings can be generative. Co-creators have been motivated to write blogs acting on and sharing their research and reflections, and to evolve their idea seeds through making.² Our monthly rhythm allows us time to sit with and embody our learning and ideas, transferring our learning to different contexts.³ Our hybrid option also enables online co-creators to connect their own places with knowledge and ideas emerging from and with Dudley; a bridge from home to communal.⁴ Evolving regenerative cultures is slow work, moving at the speed of trust and relationships, and so we need a social space between gatherings to nurture our collective culture: a journey from ‘me’ to ‘we’.

The Stories of Place WhatsApp group is a curious and heartwarming place. Scrolling through, you’ll find a rich biodiversity of gifts: wildlife visiting Paul’s garden; Dionne laughing next to their Dudley council colleague in the Human Limpet; Nat WB’s creative invitations to Nature connection and climate action; Indigenous learning from Rebekah; Helen’s Snail badge next to a tiny slip of paper reading “Snails of the High St Unite”; Nature taking over Jan’s fence; Moth I met during a nighttime Sandwell Valley Nature Reserve walk; the Art of Unfinishing podcast from Lorna; Gorse on Jo’s morning dog walk in Dorset; and Erica’s discovery of Madrid Atocha Station designed with Nature. This is a space where co-creators gift curiosities, connections, experiment updates and gratitude for prototyping between our gatherings. It doesn’t matter if co-creators haven’t joined Stories of Place for a while; their gifts are always welcomed.

Our Whatsapp group is just one of the multiple pathways of entry and ways of being for Stories of Place. Co-creators who prefer to listen during gatherings can be more vocal in messages between gathering. We also co-wrote collective care principles to share accountability in creating a safe space for different voices to be heard and for imagination and creativity to emerge without judgement: “We listen with attention, curiosity and care; we speak with intention and care; and we imagine and act collectively.” We reflected that values can emerge out of organic, social processes rather than being agreed.⁵ Values can be aspirational and communicated in ways that are affirmative.⁶ Jan reflected that conversations through making is another pathway for people who might be “used to not having their voice heard” to engage in a way that is “doable, not too demanding.”⁷ The act of making together “helps to hold that thread” of conversation with “less urgency to jump in with the response.”⁸ Dionne’s gentle invitation to making unlocked Jan’s “creative mojo” having experienced problems with their hands, and enabled me to overcome sensory overload which usually limits my own ability to contribute to conversations. Going forward, Rebekah suggested “100% more play” as “a pathway to imagination and creativity.”⁹ Having multiple pathways of entry for people with neuro and physical diversity through making, reflecting, sharing, conversing, listening and playing helps to connect individuals into a collective.

Physical space affects our journey from me to we. Ideas and action wouldn’t emerge without the lab space creating safety for creativity, and inviting connections between experiments and learning celebrated on our constantly changing walls. As Jo reflected, the lab has a role of a storyteller: “An inviter to imagine differently [and a] space that gives permission for more embodied learning” through Human Limpet and the more-than-human kith.¹⁰ We have agency to change this flexible space, which enables group, individual or peripheral experimentation and cross-pollination through proximity. Open time to just be in the space, move around people making, listen in on conversations and connect with others can lead to unexpected collisions of ideas.

The location of our space on the High Street is also critical. Doing experiments on Dudley High Street invites curiosity and intrigue, engaging passersby¹¹: “Once you show that possibility, people seem to want more of it.”¹² Our High Street window is an ever-changing portal to possibilities, a shift away from window shopping to window imagining (although we do still get knocks on the door enquiring if Plants are for sale). During one gathering, DKB spotted Abby’s imagined Dudley in the window and told them, “Your window is what inspired me to get in touch!” Sharing our processes and ideas out loud create invitations for individuals into the collective.

Stories of Place nurtures process-focused cultures through cycles and rituals of sharing invitations. People might come across Stories of Place through monthly social media posts or posters on our High Street window that reflect the more-than-human kith we see that month. These cycles of invitations visualise “the little rituals we have” in meeting around a common focus of just existence, expanding our concept of ‘social’ beyond a human focus.¹³ The responses to sharing our activities on Instagram suggests “people are inspired by a different way of thinking, but probably don’t get as many opportunities to think about change, and what just change might look like.”¹⁴Artefacts we create, like Human Limpet and Jellimpet, have also become entry point invitations. When we have visitors to the lab space, we often show them Human Limpet to explain Stories of Place, and invite them to clamber inside. It can understandably take a few visits until someone feels comfortable to try.

We collectively forage and share materials and resources. When Dionne was developing ideas around what materials to use for their experiment, Lorna and Jan shared ideas for reusing resources already in our ecosystem rather than defaulting to purchasing or using new materials, and sharing knowledges on natural adhesives.¹⁵ On the day of Dionne hosting their first prototype with co-creators, they had actually forgotten it was happening and had not yet thought through how we were going to keep our paper beads upright. Frantically messaging each other, Dionne and I found the answers in our kitchen cupboards: Dionne grabbed a potato, I grabbed some cocktail sticks. This last minute, lo-fi solution led to unexpected potato sculptures which capture the spirit of Stories of Place: imperfect improvisation in a safe and supportive space. This culture of collective pooling and foraging of resources continued. The Human Limpet and Jellimpet grew out of co-creator recycled cardboard, spare fishing line, foraged Limpet shells, and reused paper lanterns. We now have a growing corner of ‘stuff to make with’ for co-creators to contribute to and delve into.

There’s something particularly special about spending multiple gatherings with people who have been thinking of an experiment for several months and they then feel ready to invite other co-creators to be part of their prototype. Creating together sparks emotions and connections, and deepens relationships. For Dionne’s East African bead making prototype, there was a particular generosity in care for each other in this process of gentle exploration, creating space for vulnerable conversations to emerge. For Helen and Rick’s Human Limpet prototype, it felt like an in-it-together, let’s just see what happens, spontaneous gathering full of laughter, movement and playfulness. The Jellimpet felt more focused: we were a team working to a brief in a confined space with lots of moving parts with more moments of stillness and reflection, and a healthy dose of laughter. Jo wondered about representing emotions alongside the seeds of ideas as feelings have a critical role in climate action work.¹⁶ Rebekah was also drawn to connecting with our bodies’ feelings as they can help us to remember and take us to unknown places.¹⁷ During a reflection session with Dudley People’s School for Climate Justice team, Jo invited us to reflect on where we felt joy, shifts and knots in our projects. I was struck by how much laughter there is in our gatherings, but I hadn’t been mapping it. Emotions became blaringly important when I started writing about co-creator prototypes with the lens of relationships. What if we paid more attention to and valued emotions as sensory signals in our journey from me to we, and from knowing to being?

Learning patterns:

• A rhythm with hybrid gatherings supported by a virtual social space can invite cultures of collective curiosity, learning and reciprocity.
• The process of collective creativity through relational convening can invite multiple pathways of entry and ways of being.
• Space as a storyteller and a place of cross-pollination and unexpected connection plays a role in collective imagining and acting.
• Collective creativity that invites emotions and deepens relationships.
• Rituals of sharing our creative processes can become relational invitations.

Collective responsibility and accountability are an alternative to expectations of service provision. Sharing our processes out loud demonstrates different ways of being as opposed to having closed processes as a siloed group. This helps us to value process as well as product, stretching beyond dominant ways o f being that can limit who can meaningfully be part of experiences. In our everyday experiences there is usually little dedicated space for imagination, creativity and paying attention to care and emotions, instead with efficiency and productivity being more valued and prioritised. These all might help us to shift from extractive behaviours to collective and regenerative behaviours.

Design questions these patterns reveal for how Stories of Place might evolve this year:

• How might Stories of Place nurture a collective culture that is resilient and decentralised?
• What rhythms and behaviours support collective cultures?
• How might Stories of Place processes extend beyond and feed back into our gatherings?
• How might we welcome multiple ways of being in how we design our activities and invitations?
• How might the lab space become even more of a storyteller?
• How might we communicate the lab space as a creative process tool?
• How might we evolve the physical archive in our spaces, embodying the digital archive in the lab, window and beyond across the Borough?
• How might we value and include emotions in our creative documentation of gatherings?
• How might documenting emotions in our gatherings invite connections between knowledges and ideas?
• How might we continue to evolve collective values?
• How might we build collective knowledge and awareness of skills and resources available in our ecosystem?
• How might we co-create and share a ritual of relational invitations?
• With our withdrawal from X (Twitter), how might we share visualisations of our rituals?

Intentions for Stories of Place this year:

• Invite collective and self-organising hosting, convening and documentation.
• Invite doing and sharing of this beyond Stories of Place gatherings.
• Let go of pressures of destinations and allow time to think, revisit questions and reveal connections.
• Share a visual story of how the space can morph as an invitation for spatial agency.
• Co-design Dudley Time Portal in the Wild
• Create rituals with data humanism to document and value emotion
• Develop practices of upcycling and reuse.
• Share resource knowledges within our ecosystems.
• Record invitations on the Dudley Time Portal as they are as important as the artefacts.
• 100% more PLAY.
• Create rituals around sharing our processes.

Wisdom we might draw from:

• Regenerative resilience — Common Vision’s Playbook for the Future ‘Toward Regenerative Resilience’ is a wonderful resource in understanding how grassroots community groups can “adapt to future societal transitions.”
• Play — Rebekah Warmington and Artemis Bear brought play to the Flourishing Edges Unconference through nest-building and ‘anarchist calisthenics’.
• Self-organising practices — Practices of sharing hosting and convening responsibilities are emerging in the Growth Edges gatherings, as well as the self-organisation of the Flourishing Edges Unconference.
• Creative documentation of emotions — Giorgia Lupi’s data humanism has been a favourite source of inspiration since the first Stories of Place gathering.
• Peer learning journeys — Huddlecraft’s work on peer-led learning journeys, more recently with CIVIC SQUARE, are always an inspiration.
• Working in relation with each other — Dionne was curious about what it might be like for humans to act like Starling murmurati ons in which they are in relationship with the seven birds around them. Dionne felt this was more possible in the safe space of Stories of Place in which you can connect with others, get in a Limpet, go into the kith pool, or join a workshop.¹⁸
• Collective creative documentation — Jo has been co-evolving detectorism through CoLab Dudley over the years, which is our approach to learning: it “encourages knowledge sharing in multiple forms and mediums meaning it translates and transmits across multiple ways of knowing.” As part of detectorism, Jo has been exploring how a collective responsibility around creative documentation might contribute to how we learn together:

“Creative documentation can start small and simple, and might grow as a series, becoming cumulative in its building and archiving of knowledges and knowledge production processes. It might be a form of creative journaling, a photographic essay, collage or zine series, artefact assemblage, recorded audio or film, counter-map, crafted artefact, conceptual illustration, or any form of creative response to activities or interventions.” — Jo Orchard-Webb, 2024

1. Rebekah Warmington, March 2025
2. Dionne Williams and Erica Williams, March 2024; Rebekah Warmington, November 2024
3. Rebekah Warmington, March 2025
4. Jan Norton and Rebekah Warmington, March 2025
5. Dionne Williams and Helen Garbett, June 2024
6. Rebekah Warmington, August 2024
7. Jan Norton, June 2024
8. Lorna Prescott, June 2024
9. Rebekah Warmington, March 2025
10. Jo Orchard-Webb, October 2024
11. Helen Garbett, June 2024
12. Lorna Prescott, June 2024
13. Helen Garbett, October 2024
14. Dionne Williams, October 2024
15. Dionne Williams and Lorna Prescott, April 2024; Jan Norton, Dionne Williams and Lorna Prescott, June 2024
16. Jo Orchard-Webb, October 2024
17. Rebekah Warmington, October 2024
18. Dionne Williams, October 2024

Stories of Place Co-creators

Abby Staniland (Earthworm / Orkney Vole) grew up in Dudley, worked at the zoo and is now a budding landscape architect, bringing their connective imagination and visualisation talents. With other design students, Abby gifted dreams of local folk swapping waste plastic for Dudley pounds to mould into pop-up modular community tables for people to exchange goods, collaborate, create and learn together.

Alex Lui (Limpet)

Andy Edwards (Limpet)

Bill Laybourne (Sludge Worm) is full of fascinating facts and provocations, bringing laughter and inspiring disorder. Bill‘s sound-based social art practice led to co-creators noise making with more-than-human sounds of the High Street.

Caz Emery (Ginger) has a reputation for creating something out of nothing and getting stuff done, with curiosities around craft, nature and food. They are often found cooking plant-based meals on the campfire feeding and nurturing the Ekho Collective community.

Deb McDonald (Ant) is a network weaver, bringing knowledges and curiosities from Ekho Collective, and is particularly curious about how people can collectively engage with creativity, culture and heritage to co-create resilient communities.

Dena Khan (Bumblebee / Shark / Swift) brings an imagination that centres young people and how they can shape and renew places through creativity, connecting with multiple generations. They are curious about buildings being perceived as waste, and how we can bring life to them again through care and connection.

Dionne Williams (African Migrant Butterfly / Limpet / Mycelium / Northern Pool Frog / Red Squirrel) is a deep thinker and doer drawn to creativity and experimentation. Dionne has a gift for nurturing welcoming, safe and generous spaces, currently exploring how East African values might invite conversations and creativity that bring us closer to Nature-connected values in Dudley.

DKB (Dragonfly / Ginger) is curious about sharing sustainable farming and growing knowledges between different places across the world to help build hopeful resilience within the Earth crisis. This curiosity is rooted in their captivating childhood memories of running through their farm pausing to eat fresh mangos.

Erica Williams (Buddleia / Ginger) is a walking encyclopaedia of Black Country history, whose Storylines blog is rich with research connecting family history with wider systemic issues. Erica has a wonderful ability to connect ideas to inspiration from places across the world and knowledges gained from her background in teaching and training business communication, particularly in the marketing communications industry.

Helen Garbett (Little Whirlpool Ramshorn Snail / Limpet / Orkney Vole / Sludge Worm) always brings a contagious curiosity rooted in their social art practice exploring human entanglement with Limpets. Helen has a magical ability to shift us from imagining to making, inspiring us with their creations between our gatherings, and, of course, spark collective fascination in all things Limpet.

Holly Doron’s (Chiffchaff / Earthworm / Fountain Water / Great Diving Beetle / Limpet / Moth) favourite moments are watching people spark with others over a thought or idea so they try to create the conditions for this to happen while listening, note-taking and connecting learning and curiosities.

Jack Williams (Water Strider) brings their wildlife conservation knowledges from Dudley Zoo and is curious about what zoos might look in the future as spaces for community, nature connectedness and wellbeing.

Jan Norton (Hazel Dormouse / Peacock Butterfly / Robin / Zitting Cisticola) brings their creativity, stories with Nature, smiles and stunning skills and ideas with fabrics and stitching. Jan is a convenor of Stitchers in Time who research and create beautiful pieces connecting textiles, fabrics, stitching and other media with Nature, place, stories with heritage and futures.

Jasbinder Sangha (Puddle)

Jasbir (Water Strider)

Jhora Sangha (Pigeon)

Jo Orchard-Webb (Gorse / Hawthorn / Hedgehog / Mycelium) joins virtually from the Dorset seaside, bringing Nature perspectives and curiosities from Eric-the-dog walks along with their deep care for Dudley. Jo has a talent for absorbing and connecting everybody’s ideas with wider ecosystems and knowledge networks.

Laura Jane Round (Hammerhead Shark)

Laura Onions (Limpet) has an inspiring ability to get stuck in with making, gifting their creativity and curiosity to other co-creators. Laura’s art practice is rooted in printmaking and how this can take on new forms out and about with Nature across the Black Country.

Lorna Prescott (Barn Owl / Great Diving Beetle / Hedgehog / Nettle / Red Fox / Swift) brings years of lessons from doing in Dudley alongside deep thinking around systemic issues behind our everyday interactions. Lorna is full of curiosity and wonder around anything more-than-human and deep time.

Luke Hudson (Dragonfly / Great Mouse-Eared Bat / Limpet) brings their fascination and knowledges around green living, Nature and psychology, alongside their curiosity and laughter, diving into and co-evolving whatever unexpected activities co-creators are dreaming up.

Miriam Atikpo always brings deep reflections with critical thinking rooted in a stunning abundance of cultures and languages. If she’s not with us, it’s because she’s busy spreading care in the NHS.

Nat WB (Bumble Bee, Hedgehog, Little Egret)

Natalie Marsh (Snail)

Nichaela Reid (Bumble Bee)

Paul Burns (Hawthorn / Mycelium) brings invigorating perspectives and prose as a creative writer with a fascination in more-than-human folklore. Paul is generous in sharing photos and videos of their local wildlife in between gatherings and always has interesting Dudley memories to share.

Rachael Othala (Fountain Water / Great Diving Beetle) always arrives full of Dudley energy and curiosity, inspiring other co-creators with their creativity through making and poetry. They are curious about how the LBGTQIA+ community and allies can explore art together.

Rebekah Warmington (Badger / Bear / Buddleia / Ladybird) brings her gifts in creative making and thinking, with an extraordinary ability to weave deep reflections in the moment. Rebekah generously shares her experience in learning with and from Nature and Indigenous knowledges. She is also deeply inspired by play, and how experiential learning can enhance and guide the connections we make in our journeys of exploration and discovery.

Rick Sanders (Beaver / Limpet) brings their do-it-together spirit, gifting inspiration from their practice in poetry and breathing creativity into upcycling furniture and textiles.

This research is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council through Midlands4Cities. It is entangled with my work at CoLab Dudley funded by The National Lottery Community Fund’s Climate Action Fund and Joseph Rowntree Foundation as part of a network of Pathfinder organisations reimagining and redesigning the world we want to live in to achieve deep, transformative change.