Upstream is a publishing collectiveinterested in tending toall our relations. An invitationto notice, question, and mapthe dynamic ecologies between people, the built environment, and our nonhuman relatives.Relation, for us, moves beyond ideals of interconnection to work throughthe possibilities, tensions, limits, and debris that gatherin the eddiesof encounter. Too often, ecological thinking abstracts the world into universalizing totality.We try to start from where we are:Lenapehoking,so-called Philadelphia,a city built on layered ground,buried streams, and ongoing displacement.We are a porous and evolving collectiveof Penn affiliates and Philadelphia community members, a group of experimentersand an experiment as a group. We are rooted here,emphasizing in-person collaboration,physical print, and gatheringsthat nurture the slow practice of relation, while remaining opento digital tools that extend our reach and deepen our community. Upstream is engaged in destratified formsof thinking that seek to transform the limitsof the Insider-Outsider binary. We are interestedin the politicsand poeticsof relation,acknowledging how histories of inequalityand access, harmand repair, proximity and distancesituate all of our interactions. Our inaugural theme, Source,undoes conventional ideas of beginnings.When framed as a single point of origin, "source" reinforcescolonial narratives of purity and linear progression. Instead,we invite contributors to reflect on the sedimented,non-linear paths that lead us here.The works emerging from this theme explore flows of matter (uranium, asphalt...),meaning (divination, ritual...),and energy (labor, power)across bodies and geographies, questioningwhat it means to locateor losea beginning. Alongside our editorial work, we host workshopswhere contributors develop projects collaboratively(read more),exploringhow writing and making can deepen our relationships and understandings. We publish pieces on a rolling basis,collecting them into small print mini-issues,and later compiling into our first full print anthology on source. We are now accepting submissions!Upstream welcomes a manifold of modalitiesof work and exhibits those works in a flurry of mediums:whether it be hosted digitally on a website, made available on print, or ephemerally enacted as workshop or performance. Upstream is the hometo many communal wanderings. Reach out through Instagram or email to get involved. Sign up for our mailing list for events.

Swim on, fishes,
Upstream.