During Climate Week NYC, around 60 climate scientists, activists, students, professors, and communicators gathered on Governors Island for an event focused on observation. The gathering was organized by The New York Climate Exchange in partnership with Stony Brook University and the Science Communication Lab/Wonder Collaborative. Attendees watched a screening of the documentary film OBSERVER.
The venue for the event was a converted church known as Building 309, featuring stained glass windows and red frames that echoed themes from the film. OBSERVER, released in March 2025, documents filmmaker Ian Cheney’s project where he brings scientists, artists, and other observers to various locations worldwide without prior notice of their destination. Participants are then asked to describe what they see.
One segment features biologist David Haskell—who also participated in a post-screening Q&A—alongside another scientist arriving in Sicily with little advance notice. They observed geological features and ancient structures before using a red frame to focus on details within a rock bed.
The film travels to several locations including Greenland, Seoul in South Korea, and Chile. In each place, different experts such as microbiologists and poets share their perspectives on local environments. These accounts highlight how individual backgrounds shape ways of seeing the world.
J.D. Allen, lecturer at Stony Brook University’s School of Communication and Journalism who specializes in climate communications, secured funding for the event along with Sarah Goodwin from the Science Communication Lab. After the screening, panelists including Goodwin, Allen, Haskell, Eliza Schiff, and Meredith DeSalazar led discussions and hands-on activities related to observation.
Allen emphasized: “I think that as we learn to observe together with our individual expertise, we can find common ground on issues like clean energy, conservation and climate impact. When you bring many people together to build that story, you gain a deeper sense of what that reality is.”
Haskell commented on modern disconnection from nature: “We live in a time where we can’t name the trees on our street or the sound of a bird’s calls. It is important to dig down where you are at home and learn about the world around you.”
Attendees later participated in an exercise using replicas of the red frames from OBSERVER. Working in pairs across Governors Island’s landscape, they independently described scenes framed by these props before sharing their observations with each other—a demonstration of how perspective shapes understanding.
Stony Brook student Maryam Elfeky reflected: “The film made me think about empathy, and how if more people could take the time to view those different perspectives, it could do so much good for the world.”
Support for this event came from grants provided by organizations such as the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation as well as Schmidt Sciences and University of California Santa Cruz Science Communication Catalyst Grant.
