An Afternoon at BioBAT Art Space: Sensing Plants
📍 BioBAT Art Space
🗓 Saturday, October 11, 2025
🕒 1:00–5:00 PM
📌 Brooklyn Army Terminal, Building A, 140 58th Street, Brooklyn
📞 On-site contact: +1 347 730 3139
🔗 For RSVP click here
This event is part of Sensing Change, a citywide Festival presented by Art Switch Foundation and Transparent Eyeball. This year’s edition explores how humans and non-humans perceive and participate in change – exploring ecological systems and geological shifts to embodied knowledge and cultural transformation.
Looking at how the more thank human world reflects, incorporates and senses change, and how we, humans, can measure, trace, understand these shifts and visualize them. We are interested in exploring how plants sense the world, adapt to change; we’re excited to dive into speculative botanical futures and discover how adaptive intelligence inspired by the botanical world looks like; and finally we are as usual open to new learnings and perspectives from the more-than-human world.
Speakers:
⊙ Elizabeth Hénaff (NYU)
⊙ Mitchell Joachim (Terreform ONE, NYU)
⊙ Tarun Nayar (Modern Biology)
Featuring Artworks by:
⊙ Jonah King
⊙ Julietta Tarraubella
⊙ Kordae Jatafa Henry
⊙ Joshua Dawson
⊙ Kryštof Brůha
Sound performance by Sabina Hyoju Ahn
About Speakers:
Elizabeth Hénaff
Bioinformatician Bridging Science, Design & the Microbial World
Computational biologist whose work explores how living systems interact with their environments, from plant genomes to urban microbiomes. Trained in computer science, plant biology, and bioinformatics, she earned her PhD from the University of Barcelona, following degrees from UT Austin. Her transdisciplinary practice spans peer-reviewed science, collaborations with architects, and artistic installations, with research presented at venues like the Venice Architecture Biennale, ISME, and the New York Academy of Sciences. Before joining NYU Tandon, Hénaff conducted postdoctoral research at the MIT Media Lab, Memorial Sloan Kettering, and Weill Cornell.
Mitchell Joachim
Architect of Ecological Futures
Co-founder of Terreform ONE, a nonprofit architecture group dedicated to sustainable cities and biodesign. As Professor of Practice at NYU, he merges architecture, urbanism, and biotechnology to envision radical alternatives for the future of life on Earth. A Fulbright Scholar and TED Fellow, Mitchell has worked with Frank Gehry and I.M. Pei, and his visionary projects—like living homes grown from trees or urban farms integrated into infrastructure—have earned acclaim from Time, Fast Company, and Architizer. His work has been exhibited at MoMA, the Venice Biennale, and internationally. He is co-author of Design with Life, Super Cells, and XXL-XS, and holds advanced degrees from MIT, Harvard, and Columbia.
Tarun Nayar
Electronic Musician & Former Biologist
Tarun Nayar merges his scientific training and musical intuition to pioneer “plant music,” transforming bioelectric signals from living fungi and plants into sonic compositions. Originally educated as a biologist and trained since childhood in Indian classical music, Nayar crafts immersive, nature-engaged soundscapes that overlay synthesized elements with ambient outputs from microbial and plant systems. His work has reached tens of millions of listeners online and earned him a wide following on platforms such as TikTok and YouTube. Featured in outlets like The Guardian, BBC, LA Times, Vice, and The Verge, he has performed at major venues including Art Basel (Miami), MOCA Los Angeles, New York Botanical Garden, and Vancouver Art Gallery. As Executive Director of 5XFest and cofounder of the label Snakes x Ladders, Nayar combines artistic innovation with activism—donating much of his project proceeds to conservation and community-driven ecological initiatives.