Most of my early professional work was ethnographic, having received doctoral training in anthropology. I later began crafting stories with materials, sounds and light to express what is beyond language. I still work in relationship with people but mostly, nowadays, with plants and soils whose lessons are far worthier of our attention.

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Climate Agency. Brown & RISD

Climate Agency. Brown & RISD

Makalé Cullen
Speaker, Curator

In the fall of 2019, I spoke on a panel for EPIC, hosted by Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design. Titled “Agency and the Climate Emergency,” Dan Lockton (@imaginari_es) from Carnegie Mellon School of Design’s Imaginaries Lab convened us and facilitated our conversation.

I spoke on soil (literally on a Rhode Island soil monolith*) as provocation and threshold. What are ethnographers’ roles and responsibilities in dealing with our most recent climate crisis? Should we be exploring people’s experiences of change, trying to use our insights to help drive individual and collective action at scale through organizations, or helping civil society deal with the consequences? Our panel examined some of these tensions and responsibilities, and the value that ethnographic practice might bring to one of the biggest issues for our collective futures.

I also co-curated an exhibit at RISD featuring the work of innovators & ethnographic thinkers across industries:

  • Office Humor | Fjord Dublin, Ireland

  • Socially Informed Policy and Planning for Autonomous Mobility | Rhode Island Department of Transportation, 3x3, State, Bits & Atoms and Brown University

  • The Ethno-graphic Sensibility | Instagram

  • Exploration of the Value of Face-mimicking with VR developers | Facebook

  • Interactive Storytelling: Bringing Personas to Life through an AR/VR Experience | Oliver Wyman Studio

  • Where Does Cancer Live Now? | ReD Associates

  • Density Done Right: Co-Designing walkable, sustainable, and equitable communities through digital and analog mediums of public engagement | Google, Forge Studio, U Hawai’i

  • Debris | Mozilla (*an arts-infused lens to investigate what is left behind by human interactions with non-human agents, with an emphasis on smart home assistants)

  • hi how r u: A Toolkit for Digital Expression | Carnegie Mellon University, Erin Ryan


    thumbnail photo, Dan Lockton, Imaginaries Lab

* with thanks to Jim Turenne, USDA-NRCS Rhode Island State Soil Scientist

New York Botanical Garden

New York Botanical Garden
New York Times

New York Times

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