Right to Flight: A Public Performance & Participatory Artwork
Right to Flight is a participatory public artwork and performance that responds to the hundreds of thousands of migratory birds killed each year through collisions with New York City's glass buildings. Right to Flight invites New Yorkers to reimagine the city for migratory birds.
Combining large-scale woven sculpture, performance, sound, costume, memorial-making, and public participation, the project invites audiences to reflect on the intertwined futures of human and more-than-human life in the city. At its heart is a monumental communal nest, woven from reclaimed textiles and natural materials, that becomes a site for collective mourning, storytelling, and hope.
Through performances inspired by extinct North American birds, hand-cast memorials of collision victims, and sculptural bird-safe architectural interventions, Right to Flight transforms ecological grief into an act of collective care. Rather than presenting biodiversity loss as inevitable, the work encourages audiences to imagine cities that support coexistence, demonstrating how art, architecture, preservation, music and dance performance can foster more compassionate and regenerative urban futures.
🐦 Right to Flight
Leading Right to Flight is international author, artist, death doula and Professor of Historic Preservation at Pratt Institute, Harriet Harriss, whose acclaimed collaborators include textile designer and artist Brooke Garner, multidisciplinary artist and researcher Leslie Ruckman musician, actress and singer Celine du Tertre, and dancer and choreographer, Mariko Endo.
The live performance incorporates music created from endangered and extinct bird songs, the Passenger Pigeon, Bachman’s Warbler, the Eskimo Curlew and the Ivory Billed Woodpecker, whose costumed reincarnations will dance in and around public participants.
Beyond its artistic and community dimensions, the project also seeks to raise awareness about bird-safe design in cities. Advocates hope the project will help strengthen public support for the Bird Safe Buildings Act (also known as the FLACO Act), requiring bird-safe materials in new buildings. Organizers argue that a revision to the legislation is needed to address the thousands of existing buildings whose glass façades continue to cause fatal bird collisions.
By demonstrating how bird-safe interventions can be thoughtfully integrated into historic architecture, Right to Flight aims to contribute to conversations about future legislation requiring retrofits across the city’s existing building stock.
The project also points to a broader civic question: how cities might create spaces for communities to collectively process ecological loss. As climate change reshapes urban environments, organizers argue that public rituals, gatherings and installations can help communities acknowledge environmental grief while imagining more caring relationships with the non-human lives that share the city.
🌍 About the Climate Imaginarium
The Climate Imaginarium is a center for climate, community, and culture in New York City. Located on Governors Island, the Climate Imaginarium is activating a cultural destination at the heart of New York City’s burgeoning green economy, where artists, scientists, advocates, and storytellers come together to reimagine and build toward a more resilient future.
Suggested donation is $20 to support our community space at the Climate Imaginarium, but no one will be turned away due to lack of funds.
⛵ Getting to the Climate Imaginarium
For the weekend ferry schedule to Governors Island, please check here. Ferries run every 15 minutes. Take the ferry that’s most convenient for you from either Lower Manhattan (10 South Street), Brooklyn Bridge Park (Pier 6), or Red Hook/Atlantic Basin. Please arrive 15 minutes prior to your ferry departure time with your ticket ready to display.
Ferry tickets must be purchased at the ferry terminal or online. Fares are $5 for a round trip ticket and free for adults over 65, children 12 and under, Climate Imaginarium summer volunteers, and others. All passengers ride free before 11am on weekends. Cars are not permitted.
Governors Island is also accessible from any route via NYC Ferry by transferring at Wall Street/Pier 11. You can find the NYC Ferry schedule here. Tickets on NYC Ferry are $4.50 each way.
Once you get to Governors Island, you will either get out at Soissons Landing (from Manhattan) or Yankee Pier (from Brooklyn). You can use this map of Governors Island to locate Colonels Row. The Climate Imaginarium is in Building 406A, in the middle of Colonels Row, and will have a visible sign outside the doorway. Our address is 406A Comfort Road.