Open Call
Rhizome Fellowship 2025
Pathways to Regenerative Futures
Are you a narrative practitioner, artist, academic, journalist, storyteller, or activist working at the intersection of reimagining cultural narratives and systems change? Do you believe in the power of narratives to challenge dominant paradigms and co-create regenerative futures?
The Rhizome Fellowship is an eight-month journey designed to equip you with tools and accompany you through a process of narrative-led systems change. Rooted in the Culture Hack Method, this fellowship provides a structured yet experimental space to develop and prototype narrative interventions that disrupt extractive models and seed regenerative futures.
Pathways
This year’s fellowship is centered around Pathways to Regenerative Futures. These pathways emerged from a narrative research series Beyond the Carbon Fixation: Pathways to Regenerative Futures that set out to find pathways to liberate land, waters, ecosystems, and communities from the enclosures of capitalism and colonialism.
Through this research we found that beyond the carbon-centered approaches to the climate crisis limited by reductionist metrics and market-driven solutions are alternate pathways already embodied by living examples. These pathways, when interwoven, can serve as a navigational tool for systems change.
The Pathways to Regenerative Futures are:
🌿 Restoring Justice, Restoring Life – This pathway emphasizes the inseparable connection between ecological restoration and social justice. Addressing colonial and capitalist exploitation is necessary for healing ecosystems.
💰 Economies of Regeneration – Moving away from extractive economies toward regenerative, circular models that prioritize community resilience and ecological wellbeing.
🌍 Land Back to Right Relationship – Advocating for collective ownership models, like Community Land Trusts, to return land to the stewardship of communities rather than corporations.
🏡 Bioregional Community Governance – Promoting decentralized, participatory governance structures that empower communities to manage their resources and environments in ways that align with ecological limits.
🌀 Healing the Spirit, Healing the Earth – Reconnecting with spiritual and cultural practices that honor the Earth and challenge the disconnection and alienation that drives exploitation.
We will invite fellows and projects that align with the five pathways to apply for the fellowship.
We will invite fellows and projects that align with the five pathways to apply for the fellowship. There is no cost for participating in this program. Fellows will receive training on narrative change methodology, tools, guidance and support from practitioners and a community of shared practice. The aim of this fellowship is to learn the methodology and launch a hack by the end of our time together in November 2025. The fellowship should support and be integrated into your existing work or activism. Fellows must apply as a collective or organization with at least two participants.
Fellowship
Phase 1: Culture hacking 101 – Everyone is Welcome
April 18 & May 2, 2025
Before the fellowship selection in late May, we invite anyone interested in learning about narrative-led systems change to join our Introductory Sessions. These open sessions will explore:
📌 Narratives for Systems Change & Culture Hacking
📌 Pathways to Regenerative Futures & Rhizome Fellowship
🔹 Dates: 18 April & 2nd May
🔹 Format: Two 90-minute online sessions
🔹 Who Can Join? Anyone interested in narrative change, storytelling, and systemic transformation
If you are considering applying for the full Rhizome Fellowship, we require that you attend these two sessions and complete a Narrative Project Proposal. Alternatively, you may attend these sessions and decide not to apply for the full fellowship – the introductory sessions are open to anyone eager to explore these themes and our method.
Phase 2: Project Submission & Selection Process
May 2 – June 6, 2025
At the end of the Introductory Sessions, those who wish to apply for the Rhizome Fellowship will be invited to submit a Narrative Project Proposal.
🔹 What are we looking for?
✔ A project that aligns with one of the Pathways to Regenerative Futures
✔ A clear connection to the applicant’s ongoing work or activism in systems change
✔ A commitment to developing the project through the Culture Hack Method
✔ One leading and one supporting person collaborating in the project
✔ A project that has the potential for real-world narrative impact
🔹 Timeline:
📅 Project Submission Period: May 2 – May 16, 2025
📅 Shortlist Candidates Interviewed: May 30 – May 31, 2025
📅 Final Selection (15 Projects Announced): June 6, 2025
The selected fellows will then move into the full Rhizome Fellowship program, where they will receive mentorship, training, and collaborative support to develop their narrative projects into impactful interventions.
What You Can Expect from the Fellowship
✔ 8-month collaborative process – Online and in-person sessions exploring narrative-led systems change
✔ Access to Culture Hack methodology & tools – Learn how to design and execute narrative interventions
✔ Mentorship & peer exchange – Join a global cohort of storytellers, organizers, and researchers
✔ Project incubation – Develop a narrative hack with a direct impact in your community
✔ In-person gathering – Meet fellows and co-create collective strategies in Costa Rica
What we expect from you
Full participation and aligned energy with the fellowship – there is no financial cost to participate, instead we ask for your focused energy and attention during the fellowship and through the final phase of your narrative hack.
If you are applying for the fellowship, check in with yourself to make sure you have the capacity and desire to be present and engaged at all zoom sessions and for the in-person gathering in Costa Rica, September 15-21, 2025. Each seat in the fellowship is precious. We dedicate energy and resources into each participant and ask that, in reciprocity, you fully commit to the process.
Who Should Apply?
🔹 Artists, media-makers, journalists, and researchers working in narrative change
🔹 Community organizers and activists embedding narrative strategy into their work
🔹 Teams already working on a narrative initiative
🔹 Those ready to challenge colonial worldviews and cultivate regenerative narratives
🔹 Applicants from diverse backgrounds committed to deep collaboration
Fellowship Timeline
📅 Introductory Sessions (Open to All): April 18 – May 2, 2025
📅 Project Submission & Selection: May 2 – June 6, 2025
📅 Fellowship Begins (Online Sessions): June 13, 2025
📅 In-Person Gathering in Costa Rica: September 15 – September 21 2025
📅 Hacking & Implementation: October–November 2025
📅 Final Reporting: December 2025
Selected fellows will receive access to resources, mentorship, and a global support network. One representative per project will travel to join the in-person gathering in Costa Rica.
The Rhizome is a sponsored fellowship – your project will receive a scholarship for 8 months with learning sessions, travel allowance, personal advisory and access to tools and methodology that is worth 20,000 USD per project. You will not receive a personal stipend.
Together, we Rhizome.