The Hope Forum 2024

Accelerating system-wide concrete action for sustainability

Art for Action

Inspiring action for the Sustainable Development Goals

Super Reef

Restoring 55 km² of lost reefs in the Danish ocean

Art Charter for Climate Action

Uniting the visual arts sector in climate action

Circular Museum by MoMA and ART 2030

A virtual panel discussion series

Art for a Healthy Planet 2023

Sharing great art to inspire action for climate, our environment, and biodiversity

Getting Climate Control Under Control

Committing to real climate action

The Hope Forum

ART 2030 for the UNITED NATIONS Agenda for Sustainable Development & UNESCO ResiliArt

Art for Hope

Art responds to the climate catastrophe

Partnerships as a Catalyst for Change

Hignline New York City

Art for a Healthy Planet 2022

Sharing great art to inspire action for climate, our environment, and biodiversity

Interspecies Assembly

SUPERFLEX

ART 2030 Presents

Conversations on Art and Sustainability

Danh Vo Presents: A Haven for Diverse Ecologies

Danh Vo

Art for a Healthy Planet 2021

Sharing great art to inspire action for climate, our environment, and biodiversity

UN high-level event on Culture & Sustainable Development

Art Sector Luminaries Address the United Nations

Art for a Healthy Planet 2020

Sharing great art to inspire action for climate, our environment, and biodiversity

GOALS

Christian Falsnaes

Breathe with Me

Jeppe Hein

Vertical Migration

Part of Interspecies Assembly by SUPERFLEX: About the Artwork

Interspecies Assembly

Part of Interspecies Assembly by SUPERFLEX: About the Artwork

ART 2030 New York

For Art and the Global Goals

Tow with The Flow

Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen

Planet Art

Amapá

YES

Yoko Ono

Soleil Levant

Ai Weiwei

Interspecies Assembly

2021-2022

SUPERFLEX

Image: (Left) Vertical Migration at the United Nations Headquarters, and (Right) Interspecies Assembly in Central Park, September 2021. Photos by Lance Gerber, courtesy of SUPERFLEX.

Biodiversity is collapsing, sea levels are rising, and weather is becoming more extreme and unpredictable. Human activity is now unequivocally linked to climate change and its consequences. Is it time to listen to the wants and needs of other species?

Interspecies Assembly is a two-fold art experience, with the artworks Interspecies Assembly, a gathering site marked by a series of pink stone sculptures engraved a call-to-action, and Vertical Migration, a digitally-animated filmwork offering humans an intimate encounter with one of the species we share our planet with: the Siphonophore - a unique marine species from the deep sea. Together, the artworks propose a simple mission: to foster friendly relationships among species, in hopes of paving a pathway for a truly safe and sustainable future.

From its debut in New York at the 76th UN General Assembly, Interspecies Assembly continues to travel around the world. In Fall 2021, the project was presented Copenhagen against the backdrop of COP26, and will continue onwards to a new location in Spring 2022.

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Images: Vertical Migration, and Interspecies Assembly, SUPERFLEX, 2021. Interspecies Assembly by SUPERFLEX for ART 2030 in New York was generously supported by New Carlsberg Foundation, The Obel Family Foundation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Denmark, Ministry of Culture Denmark, Beckett Fonden and the Danish Arts Foundation.Beckett Fonden and the Danish Arts Foundation. Interspecies Assembly was developed in close collaboration with KWY.studio. Vertical Migration is commissioned by ART 2030 and TBA21–Academy, and the presentation in New York was supported by Avatar Alliance Foundation, Dalio Philanthropies, OceanX, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI), New Carlsberg Foundation, The Obel Family Foundation, Beckett Fonden, and Danish Arts Foundation. Vertical Migration was developed in close collaboration with Kollision. Photos by Lance Gerber, courtesy of SUPERFLEX.

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Interspecies Assembly Locations

Copenhagen: Interspecies Assembly

Sculptural Installation

Bryghuspladsen
Danish Archicture Center (DAC) & BLOX
Bryghusgade 1, 1473 København
28 October - 28 November, 2021
All Day, Public

Copenhagen: Vertical Migration

Interactive Filmwork

DAC Passage
Danish Archicture Center (DAC) & BLOX
Bryghusgade 1, 1473 København
28 October - 28 November, 2021
Sunset to Sunrise, Public

New York: Interspecies Assembly

Sculptural Installation

Naumburg Bandshell North
Central Park
New York City
September 21-24, 2021
All Day, Public

New York: Vertical Migration

Public Projection

Northern Facade of the Secretariat Building
United Nations Headquarters
New York
September 21-24, 2021
8-11pm, Public

About the artwork: Interspecies Assembly

Detail, *Interspecies Assembly*, SUPERFLEX, 2021. Photo by KWY.studio. Courtesy of SUPERFLEX.

“

Our agreements and demonstrations are proving insufficient; the water is coming. Eels are vanishing, corals reefs are under severe heat stress, sheep laurel bloom earlier and mackerel and flamingos are moving north. All species are suffering from human-made climate change, but their needs and wishes are still to be accounted for. - SUPERFLEX

Interspecies Assembly is an sculptural gathering site that invites humans and non-humans representations to a meeting point for listening, dialogue, and debate.

A series of pink-stone sculptures arranged in a circular configuration, engraved with a call-to-action from human visitors, created a space in which humans must temporarily slow down and actively listen to their co-species.

About the artwork: Vertical Migration

Still, *Vertical Migration*, SUPERFLEX, 2021. Image by Kollision. Courtesy of SUPERFLEX.

“

Our Relationship with this planet has had an enormous impact on its ecosystem, to the extent that we may soon reach the end of our journey. But this also means growth, new exchanges, and, with rising sea levels, the vertical migration of different and new life forms. Perhaps we should see this as an opportunity to reimagine one end as a new beginning. - SUPERFLEX

Vertical Migration is a dramatic filmwork focused on the siphonophore, a little known marine species that inhabits our planets waters. Following its nightly ascent from the depths of our oceans to feed on carbon-rich organisms that would otherwise be released into our atmosphere, the filmwork also sheds light on the uniqueness of this species: the siphonophore is not a single animal but a colony of specialized marine organisms that work together to enhance group survival, and for this reason, chosen specifically as the first representative of the animal world to the Interspecies Assembly.

Unsettling our perceptions of scale and otherness, Vertical Migration is a meeting with a life form that bears no resemblance to human beings, though we share a planet, an ecosystem, and a future.

Experience it Online! A Collaboration with Google Arts and Culture

Still, *Vertical Migration*, SUPERFLEX, 2021. Image by Kollision. Courtesy of SUPERFLEX.

To strengthen the mission of Interspecies Assembly, SUPERFLEX and ART 2030 have collaborated with Google Arts & Culture to bring the art experience and a wealth of educational resources to your home.

Use your phone to bring an Augmented Reality Siphonophore - the central figure of Vertical Migration - into your living room, or learn more about biodiversity, oceans, climate change and more, thanks to Google Arts & Culture partners including: Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, Underwater Earth, Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, The United Nations, and Museum für Naturkunde Berlin.

Explore the Digital Exhibition and Experience here

ART 2030 Presents: A Conversation between SUPERFLEX & Biodiversity Professor Carsten Rahbek

Take a deep-dive into art and science through the conversation between SUPERFLEX and Biodiversity Professor Carsten Rahbek, hosted by ART 2030 Founder and Director Luise Faurschou.

Expanding upon the Interspecies Assembly project, SUPERFLEX and Carsten Rahbek discuss the themes of biodiversity, time, the Anthropocene and more. They ask: How can art and science merge to create impactful work? What perceptions do we have to shift? And how were the artworks developed? The conversation took place in the summer of 2021, at SUPERFLEX's studio in Copenhagen.

View the full conversation here

Select Media Coverage

New York Times

The Art Newspaper

The Economist

UN News

Kunsten.nu (Denmark)

LifeGate (Italy)

SUPERFLEX

Photo: Ulrik Jantzen/Büro Jantzen.

SUPERFLEX is a Copenhagen based artist group working with an idea of art that is not bound to any specific form or context.

Their artistic practice embraces different perspectives and focuses on applying artistic agency to all beings. It questions structures of power, ownership, collective action, environmental challenges and interspecies relations. SUPERFLEX works with a wide range of media and topics, focusing on social, political and economic systems.