Artists + Scientists + Communities
Creating a Sustainable Future
City as Living Laboratory (CALL) works with artists, scientists, and residents of urban communities to create sustainable solutions for urgent environmental issues including climate, equity, and health. We help people connect environmental challenges to personal experiences and take action.
CALL’s Mission
is to use the power of art and science to promote understanding of critical environmental challenges in local communities and spur action for sustainable solutions.
CALL Envisions
more livable, sustainable, and equitable urban communities and thriving local ecosystems visualized and brought to life through artist and scientist partnerships, projects, and programs.
CALL Values
the power of creative and holistic thinking, interdisciplinary collaboration, and partnership to solve environmental challenges;
the importance of personal experience to understand local ecosystems and take communal action to drive change;
treating all people with respect and dignity to ensure that decision-making is equitable and inclusive at all levels;
the goal of sustainable development as a guiding principle for our programs, community action, and connectedness across whole cities; and
the integration of environmental, social, and economic (ESG) goals to maximize the potential of our programs and partnerships.
City as Living Laboratory works, lives, and produces programming on the unceded and occupied homelands of the Mohican, Wappinger, Munsee Lenape, Schaghticoke, Matinecock, Lekawe (Rockaway), and Canarsie nations. We acknowledge these Sovereign Nations and communities who remain present. CALL offers deep gratitude to them, as well as to the Black and immigrant communities who have built the city as we know it today. All of our past, presents, and futures are intertwined.
At CALL, one of the main things we aspire to do is reveal the layers that have gone into making places what they are today. Who has lived here, what their relationship was to the land, what the natural systems are that continue to shape the land, and how the historic and ongoing impacts of settler colonialism manifest for land and communities.
Recognition of Indigenous rights and sovereignty must move past mere acknowledgement – we cannot forget that Indigenous-led groups are leaders in the present efforts to protect our resources and lead the struggle for environmental justice.
CALL // Core Initiatives
