STAFF

Joshua Harrison - Director

We are not apart from nature; we are a part of nature. This is a central contradiction of modern life. Our challenge as humans, scientists, activists and artists is to bring us back into the system of which we are only a part.

Joshua Harrison is a filmmaker, environmentalist and educator. After a lifetime of connection to their process, principles, and outcomes, he began working directly with Newton and Helen Harrison in 2012 to support strategy, large projects and overall development for the Center. He became Director following recent death of Newton Harrison.

Josh has been engaged in the intersection of art and ecology since participating in middle school demonstrations on the first Earth Day in 1970.  His work centers around bringing together artists, scientists, engineers, planners and visionaries to design regenerative systems and policies that address issues raised by global temperature rise at the scale that they present.

As part of his work with the Center, Josh leads Living Forests Project, a multidisciplinary group working with the US Forest Service, the State of California, artists, teachers, local communities, business and policy leaders to build a systems approach to the fire and water crises in California.

Kai Reschke - Co-Director

Close collaboration with the Harrisons since 1999.

Since 1982 work as curator, consultant, designer and organizer of exhibitions on numerous large-scale projects worldwide, many of them emphasizing on arts and ecology (e.g. National Park Center, Alexander von Humboldt); since 1993 lecturing on book and exhibition design, planning, production, technology, didactics and evaluation in collaboration with various national and international government agencies and universities; since 2001 development of concepts, project management, budgeting, editing, design and production of exhibitions and books together with Petra Kruse.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Juliano Calil - Board Member

Juliano Calil (Ph.D.) is the founder of Virtual Planet Technologies, a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Blue Economy, and Adjunct Professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. Juliano is a pioneer in science communication, driven by an urgent mission to mitigate the impacts of climate change and human activities. At Virtual Planet, his mission is to tackle global challenges by using immersive technologies to tell stories that raise awareness and inspire action. Juliano and his team are working with communities across the world to address complex issues related to natural disasters such as coastal flooding, wildfires, and heatwaves. Recent projects include Stinson Beach and Santa Barbara in CA, West Palm Beach, FL, Bowers Beach, DE, and Cleveland, OH.

His academic publications include "Using Virtual Reality in Sea Level Rise Planning and Community Engagement" and "Neglected: Environmental Justice Impacts of Marine Litter and Plastic Pollution" for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Juliano received his Ph.D. in Ocean Sciences from the University of California Santa Cruz and his Master of Environmental Science and Management (MESM) from the Bren School at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Driven by passion and innovation, Juliano Calil is dedicated to finding creative solutions to the world's most pressing environmental challenges.

Laura Fillmore - Board Member

Laura Fillmore is an artist and community organizer. In Kansas City in 1980 she helped found the City Movie-Center, a non-profit film and video exhibition center with a robust visiting independent filmmaker program. She produced videos in public access television stations in KC, Chicago, and Salinas/Watsonville before moving to NV and organizing an immersion language school and non-profit focused on Wà:šiw language renewal; Wà:šiw ‘itlu Gawgayay, ‘In Washoe Speech, Speak’ on the Dresslerville Reservation alongside tribal Elder Speakers. She fundraised for the Wilderness and Arts Literacy Collaborative, (WALC), a teacher-led urban environmental pathway in south San Francisco high schools, and served as the first board president of the Great Basin Community Food Co-op in Reno and on the first board of the Reno Holland Project, a youth arts organization modeled on the Holland Project in Amsterdam and the Vera Project in Seattle. In 2010, her family established Demlu ‘uli Mongil ‘Food Growing’—a tribal food forest, and in 2020 she retired from teaching fine art and digital media with a focus on STEAM curriculum development around nuclear technologies and water. She currently serves on the Truckee Meadows Parks Foundation BOD working to decolonize the rewilding of a 220 acre wetland site that was once a municipal golf course in Reno, telling the story of the waters that nourish us in this place--the driest state. Recent work includes collaborating with artists and firefighters around reintroducing cultural fire on the landscape, establishing a community makerspace, and helping to insure the generous stewardship Helen and Newton mapped out for us continues into a future they cared for deeply but knew they'd never see.

Petra Kruse, PhD - Board member

Close collaboration with the Harrisons since 1994.

Since 1984 work as art historian (PhD) and editor for various publishing houses and museums, among others, as deputy director of the German Bundeskunsthalle (Federal Hall of Fine Arts); responsible management of numerous international projects; since 2001 development of concepts, project management, budgeting, editing, design and production of exhibitions and books for public and private institutions worldwide together with Kai Reschke.

David McConville, PhD - Board Member

David McConville is co-founder and resident cosmographer of Spherical, a integrative research and strategic studio specializing in offering cosmovision remediation and ontological repair services. David also co-founded The Elumenati, a design and engineering firm that creates custom immersive displays and installations for clients from art festivals to space agencies. He previously served as chairman of the Buckminster Fuller Institute and was creative director of the Worldviews Network, a NOAA funded collaboration of artists, scientists, and educators using immersive visualization environments to facilitate bioregional dialogues in communities across the US. David has a PhD in Art and Media from the Planetary Collegium at the University of Plymouth.

OPERATIONS

Justin LaneLutter - Executive Assistant

Justin is a writer and producer with a background in filmmaking and event management. He holds a BA in Philosophy from UCSC and a Master’s in Broadcasting from SFSU. In 2016, Justin moved back to Santa Cruz and became Director of Event Technology at Seascape Beach Resort. In 2021, Justin began to work for the Harrison Studio as an assistant to Newton Harrison. In 2022, Justin was promoted to Executive Assistant at the Center for the Study of the Force Majeure. He now writes, plans, coordinates, and produces upcoming events and art projects for CFM. Justin continues his efforts to keep Newton and Helen’s environmental legacy, and their ability to think big, moving into the future. 

CENTER COLLABORATORS

Leslie Ryan - CFM Design-Researcher for Future Gardens

Leslie Ryan is the lead design-researcher for the Future Garden climate-adaptation projects within the Center for the Study of the Force Majeure, a research and educational center established by Helen and Newton Harrison. She is a registered landscape architect and long- time consultant and collaborator on the Harrisons’ projects. Her former academic positions include the founding Chair of a Master of Landscape Architecture degree program at the NewSchool of Architecture and Design in San Diego, and Visiting Assistant Professor in Landscape Architecture at the University of Oregon where she led design studios focused on eco-cultural well-being of the university campus, speculative relationships between mines and seeds, habitat gardens, and local food production at a range of scales. Leslie is a recipient of the Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture awarded by the American Academy in Rome. She received a Master of Environmental Design from Yale University’s School of Architecture where her thesis project was awarded the John Addison Porter Prize as the best work of original scholarship written for a general audience, and a BS in Landscape Architecture from California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo. Her writings on relationships between art, ethics, and land use practices have been published in Places journal and the Journal of Environmental Philosophy.

Matthew Jamieson - CFM GIS Specialist and Cartographer

Matthew has a BS in Geography and an MFA in Digital Arts and New Media. He has worked for many years as a GIS analyst and professional mapmaker.

EUROPEAN CENTER FOR THE FORCE MAJEURE (ECFM)

Contact at: ECFM@gmx.de

Kai Reschke - Director

Petra Kruse, PhD - Co-Director

SCIENCE ADVISORY COUNCIL

Trelasa Barrata, PhD.

Trelasa is lead Curriculum Developer at Redbud Resource Group and a PhD Candidate in Education at Sonoma State University. Her expertise is in Indigenizing curriculum, or learning about and incorporating Native perspectives into school curricula.

Anne Douglass - PhD.

Anne Douglas is a visual artist and research professor whose work has focused on the dynamic role of the artists in the public sphere. She developed parallel strands of inquiry: investigating her own practice of sculpture and its process of change within a post industrial context alongside the potential of art practice to open up new trajectories and methodological approaches to research.

Rick Flores, A. Director, UCSC Arboretum. 

A climate scientist with an emphasis in ethnobotany and a history of collaboration with indigenous groups, including as liaison to the Amah Mutsun Tribe for the Arboretum.

Chris Fremantle - Researcher.

Chris is a Research Fellow and Lecturer at Gray's School of Art. He works as a producer of public art and design projects, a writer/editor in particular on ecoartscotland.net which he established in 2010, and artist.

Brett Hall - Director, UCSC Arboretum.

Brett is the Director of the UCSC Arboretum and State Board President of the California Native Plant Society and has many decades of experience sampling and growing montane as well as coastal vegetation. His experience covers botany, ecology, vegetation mapping and classification, propagation and nursery cultivation, garden and landscape design, interpretation and restoration. He is also involved coastal rare plant community conservation research.

Ben Halpern - PhD.

Ben is Director of the UCSB National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS). Ben focuses his research at the interface of marine ecology and conservation planning. His research has addressed a broad range of questions that span local to global scales, including spatial population dynamics, trophic interactions in community ecology, and the interface between ecology and human dynamics.

JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, PhD.

Director, AlloSphere Research Laboratory, California NanoSystems Institute, Distinguished Professor, Media Arts and Technology and Music, Director, Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology University of California, Santa Barbara.

Rachel Meyer, PhD.

Rachel is a plant evolutionary biologist and molecular ecologist with a strong focus on enhancing interdisciplinarity. Her lab models how community composition and landscape genomic variation in invasive and endangered species is shaped by human impacts, wildfire, and climate change. 

Rachael Nez, PhD.

Rachael Is a documentary filmmaker, academic, and teacher from the Navajo reservation. Along with their community and heritage language engagement, Rachael is continually looking at media technologies and how it aids in the telling and archiving of Native stories.

David Saah, PhD.

Professor, University of San Francisco, Director of the Geospatial Analysis Lab. In high demand as an expert on thew data behind cutting edge science regarding temperaturs, risk factors, moisture content, and big picture climate science, David has agreed to provide our team with this data as a fundamental part of our curriculum.

Felicity Shaeffer, PhD.

Felicity is the Baskin Foundation Presidential Chair for Feminist Studies with a dual appointment in Critical Race Theory and Ethnic Studies. She will help guide our Advisory Board to address issues of gender, cultural sensitivity, and data sovereignty.

Edward Shanken, PhD.

Edward A. Shanken writes and teaches about the entwinement of art, science, and technology with a focus on interdisciplinary practices involving new media. He is Professor at UC Santa Cruz, where he has served as Director of the Digital Arts and New Media (DANM) MFA program.