spring gathering | ideas festival
april 8, 9, 10, 2026
april 8, 9, 10, 2026
conference program
Day 1 | Wednesday, April 8th
Attuning to Multispecies Worlds
Student-centered talks and workshops + Tree Social + Multispecies Soundscapes
9:30–11:30 am
Multispecies Ontologies and Rights
with Christoph Cox and Jacqueline Gallant
Opening panel that reimagines law, philosophy, and ethics beyond the human, exploring multispecies rights and the provocative idea that plants and other nonhuman beings might hold claims of their own.
Location: Hirshon Suite
Moderated by Eva Perez de Vega (Parsons)
Presenters:
Vegetable Rights and Other Preposterous Thoughts
Christoph Cox (Dean, Lang College)
Law for a More-Than-Human World
Jacqueline Gallant (Director of Programs, More-than-Human Life (MOTH) Program NYU)
12:00 -1:30 pm
Tree Social
Laura Nova, Lisa Schonberg, Lindsay K. Campbell
“Tree Social” reimagines street tree care as an interspecies social event—because good relationships require deep listening and care. Participants are guided through an encounter with street trees near The New School by artist Laura Nova (Parsons/NaturePLACE Artist in Residence), ecological sound artist Lisa Schonberg (Parsons), and social scientist Lindsay Campbell (U.S. Forest Service, Northern Research Station), in an emulation of the social rituals we use to make friends: mixing, getting to know each other, and creating connection and empathy before committing to care for one another.
Location: Meet in Vera List Courtyard
2:00–3:30 pm
Soundscape Session I
Multispecies Listenings
This panel engages sound as a method for tracing ecological encounters and sensing the presence of other species across environments
Location: Hirshon Suite
Moderated by Lisa Schonberg (Parsons)
Presenters:
The Path of Totality at Montezuma Wildlife Refuge, April 8, 2024
AC Diamond (Critical Interval)
Passing Through A Million Doors
Genevieve Pfeiffer (University of Oregon)
Alakaʻi 1777—Using Immersive Sound to Communicate the Nonhuman Cultural Extinction Crisis
Mason Youngblood (Stonybrook)
4:00-5:30pm
Multispecies Architecture
Architecture Students in conversation
with Eva Perez de Vega
This panel brings together students from the Theories of Architectural Form class, and multispecies lab director Eva Perez de Vega in conversation around readings that question human exceptionalism in architecture and design.
Location: Hirshon Suite
Moderated by Robert Kirkbride (Parsons)
6:00-7:30pm
Opening Keynote: Stacy Alaimo
Multispecies Speculations: Science and Aesthetics in the Abyss
Stacy Alaimo, is professor, researcher, author in the environmental humanities, science studies, new materialism, material feminism (University of Oregon).
Location: University Center, UL 105
Day 2 | Thursday, April 9th
Methods for Multispecies Research
Artists, designers, scholars and researchers exploring multispecies relations through film, design, and ecological practices
9:00 – 10:30am
Zoom Session I: Designing with Multispecies Worlds
This online panel brings together artists, designers, and researchers exploring multispecies relations through film, design, and ecological practices.
Location: Zoom & Hirshon
Moderated by Abigail Perez Aguilera (Parsons)
Pseudoness: A Microbiologist’s Journey into Therolinguistics and Microbial Dark Matter
Clare Stott (Rewilding Cultures /Feral Labs)
Sensing the (un)wanted: The Redistribution of the Sensible through Invasive Plants
Buket Samanci (MEF University)
From Hands to Habitats
Selenia Marinelli (Independent researcher)
If I eat you, will we both still be OK? (Plant)
Rhona Eve Clews (Independent artist, ecologist)
11:00am - 12:30pm
Zoom Session II: Multispecies Justice, Evidence, and Governance
This online panel explores legal, ethical, and evidentiary frameworks for understanding multispecies relations and environmental justice.
Location: Zoom & Hirshon
Moderated by Justine Woods (Parsons)
Presenters:
Defending Multi-species families
Maria Celeste Jimenez Riveros (Lawyer in practice)
Artists with Evidence: Multispecies Practices in Art–Science
Ines Montalvao (Program Director, AwE)
Mystery Duet: Exploring human-mushroom co creativity through Technology
Minakshi Das (AnthroTech Framework )
Multispecies Negotiations: Mapping Non-Human Stakeholders in Fashion Extraction Systems
Herizo Robin (DAGO Collective)
1:30–3:00pm
Representing Multispecies Worlds
This in person conversation brings together scholars and artists examining how multispecies relations are represented across media, theory, and contemporary art practice.
Location: Hirshon Suite
Moderated by Jane Pirone (Parsons)
Vox Mundi: Straining to Make Sense of the Ecological Voice
Dominic Pettman (The New School)
Interspecies Library: Matter of Kinship
Oscar Salguero (Interspecies Library)
Multispecies Relations in the Climate Pluriverses: Transformations in a Toxic World
Abigail Perez Aguilera (Parsons)
Multi-Species Grief: Aesthetic Form and Imaginative Engagement
James Trybendis (The New School)
3:00–4:30pm
Student Workshopping session
students present projects and work-in-progress to discuss collectively how to deepen multispecies relations, agencies, and more-than-human considerations.
Location: Hirshon Suite
Moderated by Madeline Brubaker (MFA Student, Parsons)
Featured Student work:
Raina Redcross, Camilo Trujillo, Martize Brooks, Erewyn Limric, Harshal Rajdeo, Cagla Ekinci, Madeline Brubaker
5:00–6:30pm
Moving Images of Multispecies Worlds | Film Screening
This screening brings together moving-image works that explore multispecies relations through experimental, ecological, and speculative storytelling.
Location: UL105
Moderated by Genevieve Pfeiffer (University of Oregon)
Featuring:
If I eat you, will we both still be OK? (Plant)
Rhona Eve Clews(Independent artist, ecologist, healer)
Breathing as a Stone
Monica Duncan (Lehman College)
Bug Terrors
Sophia May (Parsons)
Growing with Giant Hogweed: Embodied Research in Multispecies Worlds
Adam Vackar (Parsons)
8:00–10:00 pm
Evening Event at Pioneer Works
Do Forests Feel?
Suzanne Simard and Zoë Schlanger in conversation
An evening conversation exploring new frontiers in forest ecology and plant intelligence, rethinking how forests sense, communicate, and relate.
Location: 159 Pioneer Street in Red Hook, Brooklyn
Day 3 | Friday, April 10th
Living in Multispecies Futures
Performances, listenings and collective practices of reciprocity with multispecies life
9:00–10:30am
Material Ecologies and Multispecies Practices
This panel examines material practices that engage land, plants, and fungi as collaborators, foregrounding relational and ecological approaches to design and making.
Location: Hirshon Suite
Moderated by Madeline Brubaker (Parsons)
Presenters:
Warm Fuzzy Toxic
Christine Facella (Parsons,)
Land as Creative Collaborator: Understanding Relational Accountability in Place-based Fashion Research
Justine Woods (Parsons)
Biomimicry as a Tool of Resistance.Addressing Extractive Tourist Economies in Small Island Spaces
Maya Ethridge (Student, Environmental Policy MSc)
Form as Friend: an ongoing research project focused on mushrooms, movement, and migrations
Carmen Moreno (Parsons)
11:00am-12:30pm
Multispecies Ecologies Across Landscape, City, and Imagination
This panel explores how multispecies ecologies unfold across landscapes, cities, and speculative imaginaries, tracing entanglements between human and more-than-human worlds.
Location: Hirshon Suite
Moderated by Oliver Kellhammer (Parsons)
Jaguar Lens: Weaving Multispecies Landscapes across the Americas
Juana Salcedo (University of Texas at Austin)
Urban Metabolism of Istanbul as Multispecies Entanglement
Esra Sert Atak (The New School & MEF University)
Title Indonesia’s government embarking on an “archipelagic” future
Ian MacPherson (NSSR)
Wunderkammer: Creating a Pseudo creature
Leekyung Kang (Parsons)
1:00 - 2.30pm
Luminous Structure: A Participatory Multispecies Performance
andrea haenggi and urban moss
Join us for a participatory performance co-created by andrea haenggi and urban moss, where human bodies and moss come together to explore displacement, energy and multispecies connection.
Location: Vera List Courtyard
2:30 - 4.00pm
Workshop - FELT: material engagement relating to sheep
Madeline Brubaker
Working with waste wool from upstate farms, a group of 5-10 people come together for a collective wool felting session to bring us into sensorial collaboration with other species.
Location: Vera List Courtyard
Madeline Brubaker (MFA student, Parsons)
4:30 - 6.00pm
Seed: A Performative Ritual Toward Decentering
Yana Schnitzler, HUMAN KINETICS
A site-responsive, multi-species performance installation exploring interdependence through movement, soil, and shared planting.
Location: UC Lobby (bleacher area)
Performers: Masumi Kishimoto, Yana Schnitzler
6:30 - 8:30 pm
Soundscape Session II
Listening Beyond Human Sensing
A session exploring how listening practices can reveal multispecies relationships and communications outside our ordinary sensory reach. Featuring artist talks, a discussion panel, and a live sound presentation.
Location: UL105
Moderated by Christoph Cox (Lang)
Featuring:
Sensing Waves of Interference by Listening with Oysters
Suzanne Thorpe (Manhattan College)
Subtle Sounds: Listening for Rat Laughter
Kathy High (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
Music and Auralization: Listening to Cryptic Soundscapes of Ants and their Associates
Lisa Schonberg (Parsons)
Hive Bodies
John Roach (Parsons)
SOCIAL GATHERING
Location: Hirshon Suite