OnBehalfof.Life

OnBehalfof.Life was a web platform for submitting public comments to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on behalf of another species. Highlighting the importance of participation in the public comment process as one means of invoking political change, the platform expands and deepens the commenting process by asking participants to envision the effect of environmental policy on multispecies life. This project aims to foster public commentary that articulates a vision for environmental justice on behalf of all life, challenging the current administration’s self serving disregard of the environment. Comments will be submitted to the US EPA, becoming part of a public record.

For this exhibition the platform is focused on issues relevant to the multispecies habitats of the Bronx. The photographs on the wall to the left were taken at Wave Hill. Visitors could follow the steps outlined on the wall to offer their own comments to the US EPA on the iPAD provided.

The Environmental Performance Agency (EPA) is an artist collective founded in 2017 and named in response to the proposed defunding of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Appropriating the acronym EPA, the collective’s primary goal is to shift thinking around the terms environment, performance, and agency—using artistic, social, and embodied/kinesthetic practices to advocate for the agency of all living performers co-creating our environment, specifically through the lens of spontaneous urban plants, native or migrant.