A STORY OF SURVIVAL ON ALTERED ISLANDS

Produced under the Climate Storytelling: 2075 Fellowship with Climate Futures Studio

Physical copies of this work are in permanent collection of the
​Multispecies Library (NYC) and Douglas College (Vancouver)

The uninhibited exchange of organisms across terrains allows for a seemingly unrelenting interchange of plants and animals, previously unknown to the landscape, to carve new relations within these newfound communities.

Produced under the Climate Storytelling: 2075 Fellowship by Climate Futures Studio, the illustrated zine, A Story of Survival on Altered Islands, trails its narrative through the unlikely paired story of English Plantain and the endangered Taylors’ Checkerspot Butterfly. Where colonization, dwindling food sources, and ecological devastation across the Gulf Islands have brought this insect near to the brink of extinction, the introduced Plantain has offered itself as ecological solace, allowing the Butterfly’s populations to rebound across continued generations within this changed landscape.

The dichotomy of disbelonging and seeded unification plays out along the pages, inviting readers into the lives of these insects and “weeds” by tracing their stories and histories. These newfound co-collaborators conjure questions of what it means to belong, the varied ways reciprocal relationships can take form, and what a just ecological future may look like across imagined borders and communities.