Conversation: M12 Studio, Jennifer Colten, Lynne Smith on the Ecologies of the American Bottom
Date and Time
Location
NBAC + NON STNDRD
About the Event
Coyote Time Convening: Climate Futures and Infrastructural Imaginaries
M12 Studio’s Matthew Fluharty and Richard Paxton, photographer Jennifer Colten, and artist Lynne Smith come together at the National Building Arts Center for a self-moderated conversation about working deeply and responsively with place. Drawing on practices within the American Bottom, the artists consider how research, observation, storytelling, and material experimentation can illuminate complex ecologies and histories. Together, they discuss what it means to pay attention to damaged landscapes, uncovering hidden narratives, and imagining more reciprocal relationships between people, place, and the living world.
This event is part of Counterpublic 2026: Coyote Time and our three-day Climate Convening, which brings together artists, writers, organizers, designers, scientists, cultural leaders, and community practitioners to explore climate as a lived reality and exhibitions as opportunities for worldbuilding.
For questions, reach out to Kristin Fleischmann Brewer at kfbrewer@counterpublic.org.
Register
Coyote Time Convening Registration
Space is limited and registration is required. We hope you’ll join us for this focused conversation and opportunity to learn alongside peers working to build more sustainable, responsive, and resilient cultural institutions.
Convening Support
The Coyote Time Convening is supported by the Frankenthaler Climate Initiative, established by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation.
The Climate Forward Institutions Workshop directly supports Counterpublic’s Climate Impact Plan. Learn more here.
This year, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation awarded The Luminary, G-CADD: Granite City Art + Design District, The Griot Museum of Black History, and the National Building Arts Center funds to lower their carbon impacts across their campuses. In addition, the Foundation awarded Counterpublic a grant to support our work with Laura Lupton of LHL Consulting to implement our climate action plan with a long-term vision toward mitigation, adaptation, and resilience and creating a model for biennials, triennials and other large-scale exhibitions to account for their climate impacts.
The Frankenthaler Climate Initiative is the first nationwide program to support energy efficiency and clean energy use for the visual arts and the largest private national grantmaking program to address climate action through cultural institutions. The ongoing initiative provides critical support to visual arts organizations in the United States seeking to assess their impact on the environment and to lower ongoing energy costs. The Foundation has conferred more than $21.8 million since its launch in 2021, with 401 unique grants given for energy efficiency and clean energy projects at 295 institutions across 42 states and Puerto Rico.