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, 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. This inaugural happening features aspects of presentation, participatory performance, multisensory communication, and workshopping. Participants are guided through a structured encounter with street trees near The New School by artist Laura Nova, sound artist/ecologist Lisa Schonberg, and social scientist Lindsay Campbell, 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 (TBC) 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)
Alaka’i 1777
Mason Youngblood (Stonybrook)
Life with Flies
KS Brewer (RPI) & Senem Pirler (U.Chicago)
4:00pm-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)
6:00pm-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: 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)
Need title - [microbes]
Clare Stott (FEMmeeting and 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:
Multi-species families -need title
Maria Celeste Jimenez Riveros (affiliation)
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) (TBC -eva contacted-waiting to hear)
Vox Mundi: Straining to Make Sense of the Ecological Voice
Dominic Pettman (NSSR, Lang)
curatorial/ research presentation
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 (New School for Social Research)
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)
Faculty Facilitators: Eva Perez de Vega, Abigail Perez Aguilera, Lisa Schonberg
Featuring Student projects:
Raina Redcross
Camilo Trujillo
Martize Brooks
Erewyn Limric
Harshal Rajdeo
Cagla
Madeline
5:00–6:30 pm
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: ecofeminist film (8min)
Breathing as a Stone (__ min)
Monica Duncan
Bug Terrors (1min)
Sophia May
Listening Beyond Translation (30min)
Adam Vackar
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:
project explores milkweed fiber
Christine Facella (Parsons, Product Design)
Land as Creative Collaborator: Understanding Relational Accountability in Place-based Fashion Research
Justine Woods (Parsons, Fashion Design)
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 Transdisciplinary Design)
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: Wool Felting with sheep and bacterial ecologies
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:
Yana Schnitzler
Massumi ___
Seeds
6:30 - 8:30 pm
Soundscape Session II
Listening Beyond Human Sensing
curated by Lisa Schonberg
A session exploring how listening practices reveal multispecies relationships and more-than-human worlds through sound
Location: UL105
Moderated by Christoph Cox (Lang)
Featuring:
Hive Bodies
John Roach (Parsons)
title
Lisa Schonberg (Parsons)
Sensing Waves of Interference by Listening with Oysters
Suzanne Thorpe (Manhattan College)
Subtle Sounds: Listening for Rat Laughter
Kathy High (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
SOCIAL GATHERING
Location: Hirshon Suite
Overview
day 01 / april 8th
student-centered talks and workshops
Student-centered talks and workshops foregrounding emerging research, creative practice, and multispecies experimentation.
day 02 / april 9th
online zoom sessions
Online Zoom sessions connecting a distributed community through talks, discussions, and virtual workshops
day 03 / april 10th
performances and happenings
Performances and multispecies happenings exploring embodied, site-responsive, and collective practices of reciprocity with multispecies life