Living Matter, Shaping Futures

Presented in celebration of Climate Week NYC 2025 and the launch of BATWorks, NYCEDC's clean-tech and climate innovation hub at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, Living Matter, Shaping Futures invites visitors to imagine new material frontiers and multi-species perspectives that might redefine how we manufacture and design for the future. As ecological pressures and shifting global climate patterns force us to reimagine the systems through which we define and design human societies, the exhibition illuminates the interdependence of all living systems and presents a hopeful vision for the future — one where resilience, reciprocity, and ecological intelligence inform culture, and critical technologies are integrated with the web of life. The works of art and design innovation collected in this show expand the limits of human-centered design by recognizing cognition, agency, and creativity across nonhuman species, microbial networks, and technological ecologies. As author James Bridle suggests, intelligence emerges not from individual dominance but through collaboration, interrelation, and adaptive responsiveness. The exhibition calls on us to listen closely to these broader networks of planetary knowledge.