Our Mission

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 experience and take action.

CALL // OBJECTIVES

All of CALL’s initiatives:

• support and advance the role of artists in efforts to make cities more livable and sustainable.

• connect people to the ecosystem and infrastructure that surrounds them, supporting their lives, making things that are hidden, unseen, or abstract real and tangible.

CALL // Core Initiatives

CALL/WALKS: CALL identifies artists committed to addressing environmental issues and partners them with a scientist or other expert in that issue. These collaborative teams engage the public ‘on the street’ in WALKS that raise awareness of the unseen and threatened aspects of their environment.  CALL is building a network of partner institutions in cities across the country to carry out CALL/WALKS in their own communities, and has produced a toolkit anyone can use to hold a CALL/WALK in their area. We also provide consulting services to businesses, cities, and other organizations who want support in using CALL/WALKS to engage community members in local environmental advocacy. Partner With Us.

CALL/WORKSHOPS: When a series of WALKS has uncovered momentum in a community, CALL begins to hold WORKSHOPS, which are designed to facilitate more in-depth conversations between artists and community members. They explore local environmental challenges and create a springboard for arts & design-based projects to generate new ideas and strategies. The WORKSHOPS include 30-40 community representatives, as well as artists, designers, scientists, and other issue experts.

CALL/PROPOSALS:  Using information gathered in the WORKSHOPS, CALL commissions PROPOSALS from participating artists/designers for concepts that could lead to new PROJECTS which address local concerns and directly engage the community in meeting them.  The PROPOSALS lay out the concept scope, goals, science collaborators, intended community partners, site and logistical considerations, implementation timeline and budget.  

CALL/PROJECTS: CALL tests and implements the best artist PROPOSALS that come from WORKSHOPS. These PROJECTS can be smalls scale community interventions or large scale initiatives that will make a permanent impact on a city. CALL also takes on commissions from other institutions or cities, like WaterMarks and StreamLines, and uses our iterative framework of walks, workshops, and proposals to inform and drive those urban-scale PROJECTS