Ancestral Ecologies

Ancestral Ecologies offers four multisensory installations that explore animist frameworks through distinct environmental and material phenomena. These include forms of adaptation and sustainability both occurring in nature and practiced by diasporic cultures.

Created by Brooklyn-based artist Olalekan Jeyifous and the environmental art and architecture practice AD—WO, the 2026 Heidi Nitze Art × Environment Fellows, the work explores ancient Latinx and African diasporic beliefs around the intelligence of the natural world that understand matter, memory, and multispecies forces as interconnected, adapted, and communicative. Animism recalls Indigenous kinship philosophies that recognize the vitality of all living beings, standing in contrast to human-centered frameworks and opening new ways of imagining ecological relationships.