Upstream is a publishing collective based in Lenapehoking (so-called Philadelphia), formed through a shared desire for cross-disciplinary exchange, collective study, and peer support. We gather to notice, question, and map the dynamic ecologies between people, the built environment, and our nonhuman relatives. Upstream is a graduate student group at the University of Pennsylvania.
Our work takes form through workshops, editing, experimental print and digital publications, and in-person gatherings rooted in slow collaboration. Over the past year, we have collaborated with artists, writers, and researchers on our inaugural theme, Source, which resists linear origin stories in favor of nonlinear, sedimented paths shaped by movement, extraction, memory, and repair. Through participatory workshops and collective making, we approach publishing as a social and aesthetic practice that cultivates attention, relation, and shared meaning.