From STEM to STEAM: Art, Science, and the Cultural Transition for Climate Solutions
Event Description: What if solving the climate crisis required not just new technologies—but new ways of seeing, feeling, and imagining? In this conversation, BEAM co-founders Annie Chen and Zoe Lee join longtime collaborator Luke-Thomas Tokimasa Henderson—a scientist-turned-artist and printmaker—to explore how art and design can serve as catalysts for climate action.
Together, they share how their work across ecology, biotechnology, and storytelling reveals a simple truth: that for real climate solutions to take root at the speed and scale the moment demands, we also need a cultural transition. Science and engineering can give us tools, but culture determines how we use them, trust them, and imagine what they’re for.
From visualizing coral conservation networks at MIT Media Lab to reimagining the future of coastal life in Rhode Island through a virtual reality experience, BEAM and Henderson develop methods that merge scientific inquiry with material experimentation, community dialogue, data translation, and artistic imagination. Through printmaking, mapping, and participatory design, they translate complex systems into experiences that make collective action—and shared hope—possible.
This talk invites audiences to see art not as decoration to science, but as its living counterpart: a space of experimentation, empathy, and invention where the futures we need can begin to take shape.
Event Details: This event is free and open to the public. If able, please bring a dish to share and/or something to drink.
Workshop: BEAM will also be teaching the workshop KITE00: Papermaking and Kite-Making on Saturday & Sunday, January 10& 11 from 10:00am – 4:00pm. Learn more and register here.
About BEAM: BEAM is a creative studio for climate innovation founded by Annie Chen and Zoe Lee. Their work spans science, ecology, and culture, addressing climate change as both an ecological emergency and a cultural turning point. Through workshops, storytelling, and field research, BEAM explores how memory, culture, and community shape resilience. Their projects have been supported by NASA, NOAA, MIT Media Lab, MIT Open Documentary Lab, SeaAhead VC, the Andy Warhol Foundation, and Anonymous Was A Woman. They are also part of NEW INC, the New Museum's art and culture incubator. Learn more about BEAM on their website.
Luke-Thomas Tokimasa Henderson is a Japanese and Native Hawaiian printmaker, fiber artist, and designer from the east side of Oʻahu. His work is rooted in both biological and cultural systems, treating the studio as a place of research and experimentation. Through his practice, he explores how materials carry information, how surfaces hold memory, and how structure can reveal what might otherwise remain unseen.
Originally drawn to material engineering/environmental science, Henderson now channels that same curiosity into art. Printmaking, with its mix of precision and possibility, gives him a way to test ideas, push boundaries, and let discovery shape form. Rather than focusing on image alone, his practice asks how meaning is built into material, volume, and process. He approaches his work not as a pursuit of mastery, but as a way to find clarity, to refine perception, and to better understand the relationships between form, structure, and experience.
About Our Programs: As a place of convergence, the Mill serves as both a community and a physical place–celebrating the power of the arts, bringing people, ideas and perspectives together. We are proud to offer adult and youth programs that focus on awareness of one’s individuality in the contexts of family, community and the natural world. Our exhibitions provide a space to reflect, share perspectives and grow as a community. Our classes & workshops are designed to inspire creativity, foster connections, and provide enriching experiences for all participants. We invite you to join us in the studio.
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