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 the recent death of Newton Harrison.
Personal Statement: I have been working across disciplines my entire professional career, moving in between the sciences, the arts, the business world and various modalities of communications technologies from documentary film to interactive digital installations. I’m interested in how we manage complex systems to (re) integrate human activity into the larger natural processes upon which all life depends.
With each passing catastrophe it becomes clearer that we cannot survive apart from Nature; we are a part of Nature. This is a central paradox of modern life. Our challenge as artists, activists, scientists and human beings is to bring us back into the system of which we are only a part.
My work is a series of explorations on how we can help make this transformation happen. I’m looking to support ways to give back more to the web of life than we take, in short, in how we change minds. By definition, this work is highly collaborative. I work with teams of scientists, activists, artists and storytellers and in ongoing allyship with First Peoples.
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, Juliano and his team leverage immersive storytelling, including virtual reality experiences and online tools, to address global challenges including climate change and community resilience. Juliano collaborates with communities across the U.S. and internationally to tackle issues such as flooding, wildfires, heatwaves, and conservations, with a strong focus on resilience, and sustainability.
Juliano is a TEDx speaker and an award-winning producer and director of virtual reality content. 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. Outside of work, Juliano enjoys kitesurfing and holds a black belt in Aikido.
Laura Fillmore - Board Member
Laura Fillmore is a photographer, videographer, community organizer and educator. She produced videos in cable access stations in Kansas City, Chicago, San Francisco, and Reno. In Nevada, she co-founded a non-profit language immersion language focused on Wà:šiw language renewal; Wà:šiw ‘itlu Gawgayay, ‘In Washoe Speech, Speak’ on the Dresslerville reservation with Elder Wá:šiw speakers; later fundraising for the Wilderness and Arts Literacy Collaborative, (WALC) in San Francisco, serving as the first board president of the Great Basin Community Food Co-op in Reno and on the founding board of the Reno Holland Project, a youth-led arts organization. Her research and curriculum development focused on the artists’ response to the birth of atomic technologies, and on decolonizing teaching about water here in the driest state (NV) after Standing Rock.
Recent work includes collaborating with tribal members, artists scientists, and students around reintroducing cultural fire to the landscape, reforesting catastrophic burn scars, and an interdisciplinary project with community architecture students from USF called Stewarding Knowledges centering Wá:šiw-led futurism at Da’aw’à:ga’a ’Tahoe’. Currently Director of the Woodford’s Indian Education Center in Hungalelti, California, she has taught at Western Nevada College and has an M.Ed. In curriculum, teaching, and learning from the University of Nevada, Reno.
It is the generosity of the spirit of Indigenous-led stewardship Helen and Newton mapped out for us all at a global scale that keeps us collaborating together in a time they cared for deeply but knew they would not live to see. We are the next generation of mapmakers, scientists, and creatives prioritizing the environment and our relationships within nature for the future.
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, an integrative research and strategic design 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
Ed Shanken, PhD. - Creative Collaborator
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.
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
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.