Retooling: Art, Ecology, and Climate Adaptation

What happens when artwork shifts from representing ecological problems to functioning as an ecological tool? Artists working across disciplines to engage with ecological challenges are creating tools that expand how we understand and respond to climate change. 

During Climate Week NYC and for the following two weeks, MESH_ARTS, in collaboration with BioBAT Art Space, presents an exhibition highlighting innovative practices that have generated tools around shade equity, atmospheric adaptation (transforming sunlight into water), and other creative conversions that help aid. The exhibition considers artistic practice as a way for building ecological infrastructure and public pedagogy, where interdisciplinary collaboration gives rise to new forms of environmental literacy and civic imagination. The exhibition will be accompanied by public talks and community workshops. 

This program demonstrates how creative collaboration can cultivate environmental literacy, build shared infrastructure, and connect artistic practice with climate action. Artists working across disciplines to engage with ecological challenges are creating tools that expand how we understand and respond to climate change. 

They’re repositioning the focus from artist as producer to artist as facilitator, educator, and infrastructure builder. Increasingly, these interdisciplinary practices have generated new forms of collective knowledge, action, and tool-making. 

Through collaborations across art, science, engineering, and technology, they transform empirical research into new ways of operating. These artists work with natural forces rather than simply represent them. 

(from the press release)

images: (cover 1 ) Joaquin Fargas, « Rabdomante», 2020 (2) Retooling, poster, 2026 (3) Morakana, «Inoculated», 2024 (4) Esteban Agosin, «Camanchaca»