Earlier this year, we announced that we’d be heading into a period of Chrysalis — a transformational pause to help us reshape our practice in the face of global polycrisis.
We emerged from our cocoon in July, and wanted to share some reflections and insights as we continue to shape-shift to meet the moment.
QUESTIONS
We entered Chrysalis with a laundry list of questions we were wrestling with. We created this list on January 21st, 2025 — the day after the US presidential inauguration. It is chilling to review today, knowing how prescient many of these questions were.
About And Also Too:
- How do we need to reshape ourselves to be resilient in this moment?
- How can we have the most impact possible?
- How do we pivot if things don’t go according to plan?
- How does our approach to managing projects need to shift in the face of growing uncertainty?
About And Also Too’s ecosystem:
- How are organizations in our ecosystem adapting?
- How are artists and creatives being targeted? How are arts & creative institutions and organizations responding?
- How are people communicating without the internet now? In places that have internet and communications blackouts, how are people sharing information?
- What is happening with employment? How are people eating?
- What are socially engaged designers doing? What does design solidarity look like?
- How are people planning for their safety?
WHAT WE DID, WHAT WE NOTICED
When the churn of project work halted, we could suddenly hear ourselves. We had space to listen to what our bodies needed (rest! appointments! tenderness! time in nature!) and what our practice wanted to be (alive! messy! porous!). And we had the time to experiment with those needs and wants.
We entered Chrysalis with the intention of spending most of our time reshaping And Also Too. Instead, we found that we needed to reshape our relationships with ourselves. This rigorous internal work showed us what we need in a design justice practice that is meant to sustain us and the work ahead.
HOW WE’RE TRANSFORMING
Our shape will never be final — as conditions change, so will we. But for now, here is a preview of some of the ways we are transforming:
We are treating projects are living beings. We breathe life into a project when we decide to make something, but like any new life form, it has its own needs and desires. Life resists control and prediction. We are shifting our project management philosophy, systems, and tools to more effectively steward the wild and precious life a project insists on having. We’re excited for you to see this in action.
We are leaning in to little tech. We have re-committed to divesting from big tech companies that prop up the genocide industry, provide the architecture for the surveillance nightmare we are living in, pillage the earth, and contort the ways we live, work, and relate to one another. We’re moving to smaller providers that share our values, and we’re dreaming of internets beyond this one — spaces where we can connect and that are immune to big tech’s collusion with authoritarianism. We hope to see you there.
People need to be with people. Our greatest source of resilience, now as always, is one another. Being connected to something bigger than oneself is how we will nourish our souls in these death-making times. We’re thinking about how we might gather community around the work we’ve been doing. We hope you’ll join us.
Stay tuned for more updates.