Laboratory for Other Worlds is an exhibition and book project that responds to damaged landscapes by constructing spaces of refuge—incomplete yet insistent acts of preservation, witnessing, and re-enchantment within worn-out worlds. Conceived by interdisciplinary artist Patte Loper, the laboratory is a collaboration with climate scientist Andrew Kemp, artist and community organizer, Erin Genia, and jewelry maker Tanya Crane. The Laboratory began as a way to reflect and communicate on research on variable sea level rise in the Northeastern United States; it has become a larger project seeking to make climate science accessible through immersive installation. This work weaves together cosmologies of Western science and knowledges from Traditional and Folkloric sources. With an understanding that the climate crisis is as much cultural as it is physical, the project draws upon the capacity of diverse knowledges: plumbing the past to contextualize the present and divine the future.
Loper articulates the uncertainty – and mystery – at the heart of her laboratory practice. “There are a few things we know,” she emphasizes, “the first being that we don’t know everything, and staying sensitive and attuned to the constantly changing world is necessary and ongoing work; that we are entangled now more than ever – what is good for other species and the land is good for humans; that living natural systems offer valuable lessons and protections.”
The exhibition imagery is drawn from multiple sources: biology, historical maps, scientific illustration, and surrealist totemic imagery. It speculates about a future salt marsh represented by a large-scale map, sculptural reliquaries holding biotic material posit the living land as sacred, wearable sculptural objects connect time, humanity, and the land; and performance activates the space with a vital materiality that is the beating heart of this work. Laboratory for Other Worlds will open in 2025 at WetLab, its first iteration in a teaching gallery.
A book project edited by WetLab artistic director Eugenia Kisin invites a range of collaborators to think with this process of weaving. We are thrilled to work with curators who have helped build the vision for Laboratory for Other Worlds, as well artists, an eco-poet, and a Native/settler collaborative who will help us find and shape the context, form, and urgency for the work ahead.
Laboratory for Other Worlds will open in 2026 at 20 Nolan Park, Governors Island.