Tishman Center Student Award for Environmental Justice and Equity

In light of all the tumult happening this semester, the Tishman Center felt a need to support environmental justice and equity work of students across the university. We put out a call for applications in April of 2020 and are proud to present the fourteen projects that we decided to support below. These projects represent almost all of the colleges across The New School and embody the transdisciplinary approach that both the university and the Tishman Center embrace as the best way to solve the issues of our time.

Anna Lathrop, Transdisciplinary Design, MFA

Project title: Green New Theatre

Join us for a zoom-side space for dreaming about a Green New Theatre. It may seem like a strange moment to extend an invitation to talk about climate justice. What we at Groundwater are identifying is that climate change will change our world in the future in even greater, albeit slower ways, and this moment of disruption is an opportunity to imagine how we pivot to a regenerative future. These upcoming Zoom-side video calls are a series that you can opt into now, or join in three months when you have more capacity.

Bart Orr, Public and Urban Policy, PhD

Project: Puerto Rico Field Work

Bart Orr’s research looks at the process and politics of planning a resilient future for Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. In the aftermath of the hurricane, the scale of devastation combined with the void created by a local government stripped bare by economic decline and externally imposed austerity attracted an influx of philanthropic and non-profit actors from the mainland United States eager to not only provide humanitarian relief, but use the recovery as an opportunity to remake the island as a case study in planning for climate resilience.

Climate Solutions Collective, Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management, MS

Project: Climate Resource Hub

The Climate Resource Hub, a student-led collaborative project, is an online platform which aims to serve as an instrument to support mobilization and educational efforts to address the climate crisis by (1) presenting a vision of what an equitable, ecocentric, decolonial, feminist future looks like, (2) providing a pool of knowledge and resources on transformational systemic solutions to tackle the climate crisis, (3) amplifying the voices of frontline grassroots organizing, and (4) prioritizing assistance for youth, activists, and organizers in the climate justice space and beyond (5) using accessible language, resources, and programming to create an inclusive educational, yet action-oriented space to connect The New School students, faculty, and staff with those not in academia, from people already in the climate justice movement to newcomers.

Dawa Sherpa, Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management, MS

Project: Advocacy Pamphlet to Stop Dam-Building

The pamphlet is intended to create a meaningful avenue for advocacy. It is intended to be resourceful to the communities impacted by hydropower dam projects, other advocacy groups, local leaders or local organizations. It will be available for distribution in the print, web version and downloadable files translated in three languages [English, Nepali, and Hindi]. The contents of the pamphlet will include the general information of hydropower dams, environmental risk, global trends in energy production, highlight case studies, local mobilization success against hydropower dams in South Asian countries and highlight alternatives.

Guinevere McMichael

Project: The Roots Cafe Food Pantry

The Roots Cafe Food Pantry is a donation-based pantry and soup kitchen in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Recognizing that members of our community were facing illness, financial instability, and person loss during the Covid-19 crisis, Roots opened its doors to the community in an effort to provide our neighbors with basic nutrition and human kindness. We serve free vegan chili and grilled cheese, dry goods and pantry items, and warmest smiles- seven days a week. We also deliver free groceries bi-weekly to over 20 families who are otherwise without food access. The Roots Cafe Food Pantry is committed to joyfully providing for our neighbors in need.

Jae Pearl, Design & Technology

Project: Agritopias

Agritopias is an experimental agri-tech project designed in partnership with Prime Produce & Seeds to Soil Cooperative. It is a decentralized food network comprising fifteen fostered food production stations adopted by participants. Through sustainable ethos and community based art practice, the project will produce a revised, open-source system of healthy food sourcing that prioritizes accessibility and contains a lightweight system of support through information exchange. Participants fostering plants have the option to exchange and transplant their desired portion of their plant yield into an on-site aeroponic chamber. This project documents a network of exchange grounded in mutual aid principles.

Jennifer C. Santos Ramirez

Project: Case Study of Participatory Grantmaking in the Gulf South

In recent years, foundations in the United States have become increasingly interested in participatory grantmaking as a strategy for allocating resources to these same marginalized areas. Using the Gulf Coast Fund for Community Renewal and Ecological Health (GCF) as an example of participatory grantmaking in the Gulf South post-Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, this proposed qualitative case study (my dissertation) will apply the method of situation analysis to explore the process by which participatory grantmaking was applied in disaster response and recovery efforts in the region.

Katinka Wijsman, NSSR Politics, PhD

Project: Assembling Coasts

Assembling Coasts interrogates how 'resilience' informs the governance of coasts - sites considered frontlines in dealing with climate change. Katinka examines how localized responsibility arrangements take root, while considering how global circuits of knowledge and finance shape the various (im)possibilities for specific practices of responsibility to emerge. As a TEDC awardee, she will develop a photo essay of her work in Suriname, where adaptation practices of mangrove restoration turn out to be intimately linked to the physical and affective consequences of colonial hydrological projects of the former plantation economy, profoundly shaping the aspirations, hopes, and fears of local communities in the face of climate change.

Ludovica Martella, Post Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Strategies

Project: Supporting The Three Sisters Sovereignty Project

The Three Sisters Sovereignty Project is a food and culture sovereignty project launched by three indigenous women of the Mohawk tribe in Upstate, NY. The project aims to create a community away from the polluted land where the Mohawk reservation resides, which has been affected by the toxic waste of four superfund sites. Ludovica has been supporting the project through creating partnerships and fundraising. She plans to travel Upstate during the summer to help record footage of the place in order to create promotional videos about the Project and interview tribe members in order to write more articles and share them with local and national news outlets.

Maryangela Sanchez Rocca, Product Design, BFA

Project: Corn Husk Stools

In order to to promote localized production of corn products and furniture in Mexico, Maryangela designed a stool made from corn husks. The purpose of this stool is to replace the promotional plastic furniture that is provided by foreign companies like Coca Cola in exchange for exclusively selling their products and, thus, eliminate the element of colonization from food and manufacturing. Maryangela is looking into connecting with groups that work around nutrition and food justice in Mexico and try to develop this project in partnership with local corn growing communities.

Moja Robinson, Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management, MS

Project: cede.

cede. is a nonprofit co-op investment platform that disrupts the modern idea of wealth. Its mission is to build “wealth” via cooperation, collaboration, and regenerative practices in BIPOC communities to cement a vision of a world that’s actively interdependent.

Monica Salmon Gomez, NSSR Sociology, PhD

Project: US/Mexico Migration Research

This research project aims to examine the experience of Central Americans and their encounters with the current migratory systems in Mexico and in the US. While it is true that Central American migration through Mexico has been constant for more than four decades, the forms, dynamics, configurations of migratory flows, and the government responses have varied over the years. Moreover, the causes of displacement have varied, and in recent years the factors that drive the decision to migrate have become more complex and intersectional. I believe that the case of Central American migration set the grounds for the intersection between political persecution, climate, and environmental justice, and transnational migration.

Sagarika Sundaram, Textiles, MFA

Project: Wool Brick

Wool Brick is an alternative building material for architecture and interiors that is circular in design. It is made from biodegradable sheep wool indigenous to the lower Himalayas where it is produced. Sheep wool is a naturally occurring renewable resource and wool-felt can be reused for multiple life-cycles, reducing material consumption. Wool is naturally sound and temperature insulating and regulates humidity. Wool Brick is a modular textile tile that can be used in interior environments to create soft insulating walls, room dividers and furniture like tables and stools.

Raissa Xie, Darcy Keester, Mohammad Sial, Vaidehi Supatkar, Transdisciplinary Design, MFA

Project: Climate Crisis Artifacts

Our climate efforts are doomed by our framing. We instinctively see the crisis as an external problem and call for new materials and methods to imagine all the ways we can shape the world around our lives but we can hardly imagine different ways of living. This project presents problem framing as an essential piece of the solution by exploring how entangled societal factors—politics, economics, culture, etc.—which typically present barriers to change can become the material for experimentation and innovation. A 2031 broadcast from the Global News Network carries the viewer through the journey of two nation-states that have emerged from a tumultuous upheaval of American politics due to the rapid escalation of climate issues paving the way for a “bioborg” in Hawaii named LAKA and “artifactual intelligence” in San Francisco named SAM to make local, administrative decisions based on those values and with a post-post truth era definition of objectivity.