Anti-Extinction Library

The Anti-Extinction Library is an installation that permanently shelters the embryonic cells and DNA of rare lifeforms, designed to delight and educate local citizens.

Created by TED Fellow artists Mitchell Joachim, Chris Woebken and Oliver Medvedik, the work raises the issue of species biodiversity vanishing at an alarming rate. Much of this devastation is because of adverse activities linked to climate change and habitat loss. The artists address this problem by creating a space that safeguards these organisms at their earliest and most fundamental state.

The local bank has the added benefit of community engagement. The Anti-Extinction Library allows anyone to submit suggestions of local species to save.

The work is installed on the East River (Brooklyn Navy Yard). View it from any passing by ferry.

Created with the support of: Terreform ONE, Vivian Kuan, Nina Anker, Lisa Wood Richardson, Sky Achitoff, Mamoun Nukumanu, Iyad Abou Gaida, Connor Lambrecht, Vivian Jiang, Robin Stiefel, Sam Anderson, Dylan Pero, Adam Jonah, Adam Fried.

This work is part of our global art action with Countdown, TED’s global initiative to champion and accelerate solutions to the climate crisis. We worked with a group of TED Fellows on ten public artworks, all launching on 10.10.2020 in ten cities around the world. The goal – to raise awareness for Countdown, while translating key climate issues in ways that spur imaginations and trigger participation. See all projects here.

The Artists

Mitchell Joachim is Co-Founder of Terreform ONE and an Associate Professor of Practice at NYU. He has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and fellowships with TED, Moshe Safdie, and Martin Society for Sustainability, MIT. He was chosen by Wired magazine for “The Smart List” and selected by Rolling Stone for “The 100 People Who Are Changing America”. He co-authored four books, “Design with Life: Biotech Architecture and Resilient Cities,” “XXL-XS: New Directions in Ecological Design,” “Super Cells: Building with Biology,” and “Global Design: Elsewhere Envisioned”. He earned: PhD at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MAUD Harvard University, M.Arch Columbia University.

Oliver Medvedik is Director of Science at Terreform ONE and Genspace. He is also the Sandholm Visiting Professor of Biology and Bioengineering and Assistant Director of the Maurice Kanbar Center for Biomedical Engineering at The Cooper Union. In addition, Oliver is faculty at the School of Visual Arts (SVA). Oliver earned his Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School. As part of his doctoral work he has used single-celled budding yeast as a genetic system to map pathways that underlie the processes of aging in more complex organisms, such as humans. Currently, he is the principal investigator at the Bioworks Institute laboratory for art and biology, and Genspace community biotechnology laboratory in Brooklyn, New York. Oliver has been awarded the TED fellowship for 2012.

Chris Woebken is a designer, educator and co-founder of the Extrapolation Factory, a participatory futures practice based in New York City. Chris earned a Master Degree in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art in London. He is currently a New School faculty fellow at the Urban Systems Lab and he teaches a studio in Emerging Media Technologies at CUNY Citytech. Prior he has taught Master studios at RISD’s Industrial Design program as well as elective classes at Columbia GSAPP, NYU, SVA and Parsons. Recently his work was awarded a MacDowell Fellowship (19), the Shed‘s Open Call grant (19) as well as a Graham Foundation Individual Grant (19). His work has been exhibited widely including the MoMA in New York, NCCA National Center for Contemporary Art in Moscow.