HASTAC 2023 Conference

For HASTAC Critical Making & Social Justice at Pratt Institute in 2023, I will exhibit “Tower: Framing Displacement," a photomontage installation, that reflects on climate change through interviews and creative data visualizations. The installation highlights interviewees of multilingual backgrounds sharing their personal experiences with climate change and their photographs of nature from around the world. Most of the interviewees have been immigrants and refugees, some displaced due to climate change impacts. With data I want to help visualize the impact of climate change in displacing people around the world.


I have developed "Tower" project since 2019 and interviewed more than 60 people speaking in 35 different languages. The multidisciplinary installation reflects on climate change and the biblical story of the Tower of Babel—a story of arrogance and the creation of linguistic differences. To overcome the vicissitudes of linguistic and cultural differences "Tower" project seeks to unify people to achieve a common goal of protecting nature. In “Tower: Framing Displacement" the viewers will have an opportunity to interact with the work and consider solutions for stopping climate change.


"Tower" project has received significant recognition and has enacted public pedagogy through organizational support (residency and grant support), open-call interviews, volunteer work, exhibitions, guest artist and panel discussions, and in the press. The project has been developed with support from The Amsterdam Collective Casa de Cultura, Bearnstow Artist Retreat, Catwalk Institute and NYU, Finlandia Foundation National, Flatbush Nostrand Junction BID, Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, Laajasalon opisto (a language school), New Dance Alliance, The Puffin Foundation, RaumArs AiR, Rauman Seudun Työnhakijat (employment services for immigrants) and Tohmajärvi Residency. All of the 60 interviewees in the “Tower” project have been volunteers. The multidisciplinary installation has previously been exhibited at Flatbush Nostrand Junction BID at Hillel Plaza, Brooklyn, Jamaica Flux of Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning at King Manor Museum in Jamaica, Queens and at Performance Mix Festival at Community Space 122, New York. I have discussed the process in publications such as, Art Spiel and BK Reader, and in panel discussions at COAL + ICE at the Kennedy Center, Hunters Point Library Environmental Education Center and Creative Art Works.