CAMBRIDGE, Mass, May 5 – Co-Creation Studio is announcing a global cohort of four projects and an inaugural MIT Exploration Team for WORLDING 2026, a leading research and development incubator, supported by Agog: The Immersive Media Institute. WORLDING brings place-based stories into light, weaving together immersive technology and community-centered design to create a new climate futures model.
This year’s open call received a record number of submissions: 128 interdisciplinary team applications representing 360 individuals from around the world. The selected teams for this year’s cohort are situated in Hawai’i, Indonesia, Zimbabwe and Canada.
“We are seeing a maturation in this blossoming field of practice,” said Katerina Cizek, Director of WORLDING and Artistic Director of the MIT Co-Creation Studio, “On the ground, community-based practitioners from across disciplines are joining forces and they are finding new ways to co-create climate futures together. WORLDING is an antidote to the daily news.”
Introducing the WORLDING 2026 participants.
Founded in 2021, WORLDING offers workshop incubators for teams made of storytellers and placemakers using immersive 3D tech to engage communities on site-specific climate futures. WORLDING researches and supports an emerging interdisciplinary field.
Beginning May 13, the teams will have a unique opportunity to develop their projects with Co-Creation and ODL researchers, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) and Agog team members, as part of a virtual incubation workshop. During the workshop, teams will explore explore how they use (or could use) realtime 3D technology to imagine, plan and co-create future worlds within real-life communities. The workshop will include a custom curated program specifically developed for the teams.
“What makes WORLDING unique is the incubation of geographically and culturally diverse projects that are situated, specific and different from one another,” said Srushti Kamat, co-director of WORLDING and founder of Algae, a startup focused on funding and distributing creative technologies, “It is through these differences that the teams discover overlaps, shared visions and solidarity in thought, practice or simply clarity about their own process. We do not ask for dilution of truth, but rather, the audacity to dream big while staying rooted.”
The incubator will include hands-on workshops, work-in-progress presentations and talks from WORLDING alums.
Some of the presentations and discussions from WORLDING will be made available to the general public, and learnings from this intensive will be made available shortly after the event. To learn more go to WORLDING site, subscribe to newsletters here, and follow us on instagram at [at]cocreationstudio.
ABOUT THE PROJECTS AND CREATORS
The four selected projects for WORLDING 2026 are:
APUHUA’A LIVING LAB (HAWAI’I)
The Ahupuaʻa Living Lab is an interactive spatial storytelling and restoration platform rooted in the living landscape of Puʻuhonua ʻo Waimānalo to restore relationships between people, water, and ʻāina (land), offering a model of climate resilience rooted in Kānaka Maoli knowledge and lifeways. Team members: Tiare Ribeaux, Brandon Makaʻawaʻawa and Daniel Kinzer.
KUCHEMA XR (ZIMBABWE)
A community-led immersive project integrating Indigenous knowledge and agroecology practices to support climate adaptation, ecosystem restoration and intergenerational environmental stewardship in Chimanimani, Zimbabwe. Team members: Chipo Mapondera, Thania Matamande and Owen Chirikure.
PARU, (INDONESIA)
An interactive place-based documentary grounded in a decade of peatland field research, PARU structures the transboundary haze crisis as a series of decisions and exchanges by exploring impossible economic choices facing smallholder farmers.. Team members: Alysha Nelson and Adi Gangga.
CLOUDS ARE MASSING (CANADA)
Clouds are Massing is a living laboratory for citizen participation, using a location-based immersive experience and data storytelling to engage the public in the planning of a future data centre in Montreal, through speculative design. Team members: Alexandra Marin, Manuel Bolduc and Sandrine Lambert.
INAUGURAL MIT EXPLORATION TEAM
An inaugural MIT exploration team will bring together MIT grad students and recent alums. The team will participate in WORLDING 2026 under the guidance of Principal Investigator Professor Ceasar McDowell and work with the WORLDING organizing team to explore how the initiative might further align with MIT DUSP and SA+P student experience.
“WORLDING embodies the future of our fields in civic, urban and architectural planning. Our students and alumni are already practicing in this interdisciplinary way using narrative strategies and immersive technologies as tools and expression of community power,” said MIT Professor of Practice, Ceasar McDowell, PI of MIT Co-Creation Studio at Open Documentary Lab. “We are excited to bring the WORLDING model closer to the teaching, research, and practice in our school.”
The MIT Exploration Team is made up of Samatha Eddy, Simone Delaney and Wil Jones. They will join the WORLDING cohort to meet in a virtual series of sessions featuring trailblazing makers, technologists, planners, decision-makers, and scholars as guest speakers, who will offer hands-on sessions, inspiration and mentorship opportunities.
More WORLDING Community Panels and guest speakers and a Public Keynote Talk will be announced soon.
Check out more on the projects and people here.
