Photo by Anca Wyland

I utilize art, architecture and public interventions to explore and provide alternatives to what I call cultural neurosis: the human tendency to over-consume, over-build, over-groom, in lieu of direct physical exertion to ensure survival. I view this as a misdirected attempt to satisfy basic primal urges for shelter, food, and clothing in a society where actions are grossly amplified because one gallon of gasoline equals five hundred hours of human work output.  In recent years, I have become increasingly interested in the connection between the climate crisis, borders, restriction of movement, and motherhood/family life.

My work and perspective have evolved from my background in climate policy, affordable housing, urban planning, and ecology. I  yearn to reinvent how we live, using art, architecture and public interventions to catalyze built environments that power themselves, cleanse themselves, transform waste, provide wildlife habitat, produce food, and deeply satisfy people. I look toward a collective reimagination of the places where we live, how we live, and how we interact with each other. The dire need to address the climate crisis, compounded by the abnormality of the pandemic, is the opening for this collective reinvention.

I’ve been a Hamiltonian Fellow in Washington DC; the Artist-in-Residence at the Woods Hole Research Center, a leading global climate science research center; an Invoking the Pause Climate Change Artist Grant Recipient; and the recipient of numerous awards, including two Americans for the Arts: Year in Review Public Art Awards.  I also founded Biome Studio, a creative design and development studio focused on utilizing art, architecture, and public interventions to mitigate the climate crisis.

I currently work at RMI, a nonprofit climate think tank that transforms the global energy system to secure a clean, prosperous, zero-carbon future for all.  At RMI, my work focuses on decarbonizing low-income housing, so that disadvantaged communities can benefit from a just transition off of fossil fuels. I hold an MS from Massachusetts Institute of Technology from the School of Architecture and Planning in Real Estate Development, and a BS, summa cum laude, from Cornell University in Environmental Science and Community Planning, a self-defined major.