Environmental artist and experimental architect working with the forms and forces of global warming.
Luis Berríos-Negrón (Puerto Rico, 1971*) I am environmental artist and experimental architect working as an Associate Professor at the School of Architecture.
My qualifications are PhD in Art Technology & Design from Konstfack University of the Arts / Royal Institute of Technology KTH (2015-20); Master of Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2003-06); Bachelor of Fine Arts from Parsons New School University (2000-03).
My postdoctoral work (UmArts 2023-24, publication to be presented in the summer of 2025) focuses on tree nurseries, researching their histories, geographies, related techniques, and how they can play a cultural role in nurturing the differences between forests and reforestation across hemispheres. I approach this research primarily through art methods, exploring cultural and technological approaches to reforestation as a just, decolonial form of geoengineering in the context of climate injustice. To learn more about my ongoing research project at UmArts (more information on the Research section above).
Recent awards and stipends include Finalist for Harvard University’s Wheelwright Prize for Architecture (2021); Resident Researcher at the art and science research programme hosted by the environmental NGO Para La Naturaleza in Puerto Rico (2021-22); Grants from the Nordic Culture Point & Nordiskultur Fond for the Caribbean-Nordic Transhemispheric Residency Programme (2019-ongoing); selected Danish International Visiting Artist, Arts Council of Denmark (2013); 1st Prize in the Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Prize in the Visual Arts, MIT (2005); and 1st Prize in the Michael Kalil Fellowship for Smart Design, Parsons New School (2002).
Recent exhibitions, commissions, and large-scale installations include Sin Título / Untitled (POST Houston Texas 2022); Estratas, Viveros y Entrañas [Strata, Nurseries & Entrails] (PLN Las Lunas, Puerto Rico 2021-22); Anarquivo Negantrópico (Gammelgaard DK 2019); Wardian Table at Agropoetics (Savvy Contemporary, Berlin DE 2019); Impasse Finesse Neverness (Museum of Archaeology of Bahia in Brazil, 2017); Collapsed Greenhouse at Undisciplinary Learning (District Berlin DE 2016); and Earthscore Specularium at Experiment Stockholm (Färgfabriken Stockholm SE 2015). I was commissioned artist at the 3rd Biennial of Art of Bahia (2014), represented Germany at the 10th São Paulo Biennial for Architecture (2013), was core-collaborator with Paul Ryan in the Threeing project at Documenta13, and exhibited in Ute Meta Bauer’s Future Archive at the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (2012).
I am the founder of the Anxious Prop art collective (Berlin 2009-14), of the Paramodular environmental design group (Berlin & San Juan 2011-present), and of the Transhemispheric Residency Programme / Transhemisférica (SE/DK/PR/FI 2018-present).