Olivia Georgia
Executive Director, City as Living Laboratory

Olivia Georgia is Executive Director of CALL/City as Living Laboratory, founded by environmental artist Mary Miss. CALL works with artists, scientists, and residents of urban communities to create sustainable solutions to urgent climate change, equity, and health issues. CALL supports artists and designers to connect environmental challenges with personal experience and to take action for a better future. Since CALL incorporated in 2011, it has worked with over 100 artists, scientists, and organizations in West Harlem, the Bronx and Chinatown. CALL has also completed urban-scale projects in Indianapolis, a pilot in Lewiston, New York, and is currently developing a multi-year initiative to advance water stewardship in Milwaukee. In May 2019 CALL launched a National CALL/WALKS pilot in six cities across the United States.

Prior to CALL, Georgia served as Executive Director of Meredith Monk’s The House Foundation for the Arts, Director of The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Executive Director of Maryland Art Place, Director of Visual Arts for the Snug Harbor Cultural Center, and Assistant Director of the Washington Project for the Arts. Since 1980, Georgia has organized over 30 exhibitions and produced numerous performance series. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of Look & Listen, a new music festival, and the Harpo Foundation.

Estuary Tattoos, 2018. A project of CALL’s Rescuing Tibbetts Brook. The temporary tattoo depicts the configuration of the Tibbetts estuary before it was buried in the Broadway sewer. Braine painted the estuary on scores of volunteers in the Bronx. The figure is looking out over the Harlem River at the location of where the outflow for the proposed daylighting will be sited. Currently the combined overflows from the Broadway sewer are the largest source of pollution into the Harlem River. City as Living Laboratory is working with local groups to advance the daylighting (bringing to the surface) of Tibbetts in the form of a linear park. Artist: Bob Braine. Image courtesy of Bob Braine.