The Assembly of the River Mustjõe – Connecting with more-than-human agencies as a designer was a one week workshop researching the river Mustjõe in Tallinn 3.–9.6.2024. The workshop examined our relation to the more-than-human world by acknowledging many commons such as the atmosphere, clean water or healthy soil as products of more-than-human processes. Can we identify and pay better attention to those who produce the living world that sustains us?

The workshop is based on research questions, which are both general and site-specific: How to better connect with more-than-human agencies as a designer? Who and what are the materialities, actors, and co-habitants that together create the assemblage of a site? How to make these actors (human and non-human) as well as their ways of inhabiting and shaping the urban landscape visible?

The workshop built around the act of identifying, mapping and representing the more-than-human stakeholders of Mustjõe creek. In this process we explored their relations and roles in the production of shared living world. The workshop consisted of fieldwork around the site, where we examined the processes and spatial negotiations between human-modified areas and non-human species. The workshop process led to the construction of an assembly installation, which made visible the non-human actors of the river Mustjõe. The installation included the found actors and artistic production examining actors’ relation to the site.