Salt Marsh Deep Time Study Center has been developed as part of Laboratory for Other Worlds, an ongoing research project and exhibition series on climate and the potential impacts of global warming on urban sea levels in the U.S. Northeast, based on climate science by researcher Andrew Kemp. This study center focuses on local salt marshes and their unique position at the edge of the sea and the land, and their history of rich ecologies buried within thousands of years of sedimentation. These marshes provide climate researchers with an understanding of ancient biomes, which are accessed via sedimentary core samples and used to reconstruct deep time habitats, and therefore ancient shorelines. This helps us understand the characteristic fingerprints that will affect future sea level rise. Salt Marsh Deep Time Study Center invites viewers to contemplate the complexity of salt marsh ecologies and their great value to human knowledge construction and more than human lifeways.

Genia performing Earthling. Earthling is the Earth, a body, and a witness. As Earthling, Genia performs with pipestone, a sacred Dakota material that refers to the Dakota origin story in which the original peoples were killed in a flood, and pipestone is the remains of their bodies. Pipestone is considered sacred by the Dakota, and none of it can be wasted. During Genia's performance, she will utilize leftover pipestone fragments as chalk to draw on the gallery walls and floor.

An example of Genia's work with pipestone, this pill-sized sculpture was taken aboard the Space Station, re-enacting Falling Star Woman's arrival on earth.

“If there is a post-Anthropocene worth living in, those who live in it will need different stories, with no entity at the center of the stage.”

This quote helps to understand that “posthuman” means us imagining a time when humans don’t look out just for ourselves and those like us, that we understand that we are all one entangled life here on planet earth and that the wellbeing of all humans as well as all species, the land, waters, and soils is equally important.

Collaborating artists Tanya Crane and Erin Genia bring specific expertise to these conversation about science, including what are the different questions we can be asking, and what does it mean to consider the subject of science as sacred?

Laboratory for Other Worlds is an immersive installation centered around a stop motion animation set. It uses an off-grid solar panel system alongside handmade and recycled materials to forge connections between green technology, science fiction, and the ecological imaginary.