Trout, Salamander, Woodpeckers and Bats
Play as an Ecological (World-Making) Possibility
Daniela Medina Poch
Participatory Storytelling Session | 24 May 2025
2.5 hours 

“In play we are relieved from competition, comparison and power interests”
-Friedrich Schiller

How does play relate to ecology? Play and ecologies are not often placed together. Yet if we understand ecology as a system of relationships, and play as an embodied way of processing complexity, as a tool to consider other perspectives and a world-making tool, then play becomes not an escape, but a possibility of encounter. A space where hierarchies soften, roles are reimagined, and human exceptionalism is not a given, but something to be gently questioned. Could play remind us that we are animals too?

In this participatory storytelling session, we will explore how play might serve as an empathetic tool toward other species, and as a method for ecological world-making. Through different kinds of playing types, role, cooperative, symbolic, emotional and sensory play, we will embody the strategies of local animals, plants, and fungi. Together, we’ll imagine playful worlds in which humans take their place, not above, but among.

Open to participants aged 5 to 120. No prior experience required.

In times of urgency, let’s slow down… and play.