Speakers

• Christina Agapakis

  Christina Agapakis is a biologist, writer, and artist known for her experiments exploring the future of biotechnology. She collaborates with engineers, designers, artists, and social scientists to explore the many unexpected connections between microbiology, technology, art, and popular culture. During her PhD in synthetic biology at Harvard University she explored biological design principles through interdisciplinary work with complex biological systems, from hydrogen producing bacteria to photosynthetic animals to cheese. She is currently creative director at Ginkgo Bioworks, an organism design company that is bringing biology to industrial engineering.

• Roger Griffith

  Roger Griffith is an Associate Objects Conservator at The Museum of Modern Art since 1998. He received his MA from the Royal College of Art/ Victoria & Albert Museum in 1997. Prior to MoMA he worked at various institutions including: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam and the University of East Anglia: Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich England. Roger has published and lectured internationally on various topics of conservation and his recent research examines the nature of the collaborative process of art professionals in regards to the exhibition installation, preservation, maintenance, and storage of ephemeral contemporary art.

• Marina Zurkow

  Marina Zurkow is a media artist focused on near-impossible nature and culture intersections, researching “wicked problems” like invasive species, superfund sites, and petroleum interdependence. She has used life science, bio materials, animation, dinners, and software technologies to foster intimate connections between people and non-human agents. Her work spans gallery installations and unconventional public participatory projects. Her collaborative initiatives include Climoji, Dear Climate, More&More Unlimited, and Floating Studio for Dark Ecologies. Currently, she is working on visualizing future oceans, and connecting eaters to food opportunities in changing climates.

• Gregg Buchbinder

  Born and raised in California with love and concern for the environment, Gregg Buchbinder’s dream is to protect and preserve our environment. In 1998 Gregg saw the potential in Emeco, a down-at-the-heels military fabricator in Hanover, Pennsylvania. Gregg bought Emeco and transformed it from an industrial Navy producer into a top design furniture brand that uses waste material for input to make the best possible long lasting chairs.

• Mark Chambers

  Mark Chambers is an architect and Chief Sustainability Officer for Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City of New York. In this role, he leads the development of policies and programs to create an equitable, sustainable city where every resident can thrive. Mark’s work for NYC focuses on both battling climate change and confronting social inequality, two inextricable parts of the same fight for an inclusive green economy. Most recently, Mark served as the Director of Sustainability and Energy for Mayor Bowser in Washington, DC. He holds a graduate degree in Public Policy & Management and an undergraduate degree in Architecture, both from Carnegie Mellon University.