Profile:
Christopher Kennedy is an artist, educator and designer based in Brooklyn, NY. Kennedy currently serves as the assistant director at the Urban Systems Lab (The New School) where his research focuses on understanding the socio-ecological benefits of spontaneous urban plant communities in NYC, and the role of civic engagement in developing new approaches to environmental stewardship and nature-based resilience.
Kennedy's artistic practice examines conventional notions of ‘Nature’ and the biocultural possibility of interspecies agency and collaboration. With a background in environmental engineering, Kennedy playfully re-imagines field science techniques, in addition to new forms of storytelling to develop embodied research, installations, sculptures, prints and publications that aim to visualize and recontextualize complex social and ecological systems. Kennedy has worked collaboratively on projects shown at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, the Levine Museum of the New South, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, the Ackland Art Museum and the Queens Museum. Kennedy holds a B.S. in Environmental Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a M.A. in Environmental Conservation Education from NYU, and a PhD in Education and Cultural Studies from the University of North Carolina.
Degrees Held:
B.S. in Environmental Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
M.A. in Environmental Conservation Education from NYU
PhD in Education and Cultural Studies from the University of North Carolina
Research Interests:
Urban Ecology, Spontaneous Urban Plants, Bioremediation, Ecological Justice and Art, Community and "Citizen" Science, Climate Change