Chris Woebken Studio is a participatory futures practice based in Brooklyn, New York, on the traditional and unceded homeland of the Lenape. Working with communities and cultural organizations, the studio creates installations, objects, workshops, and public programs. It reworks familiar formats, from service requests and legal filings to hotlines and shop counters, to help people imagine and act on other futures.
Who gets counted? This question connects projects across the practice. Animal Superpowers (2007–present), developed with Kenichi Okada and now being revisited for a new edition planned for 2027, invites children to explore the sensory worlds of other species. The Office of Non-Human Standing (2026–present) approaches the question through civic institutions. Its speculative legal filings describe the ecological contributions of oysters, horseshoe crabs, and bees as labor, asking how bureaucracies might recognize other species without reducing their lives to human measures of value.
Questions of participation extend to authorship, compensation, and credit. For New Public Hydrant, young collaborators in the Water Is… workshop with Youth Design Center received honoraria and were credited as concept co‑creators. MoMA commissioned and funded design development, then acquired four prototypes. A portion of the acquisition proceeds was donated to the center, returning resources to the community that helped shape the work. An ongoing collaborations index makes visible the people, groups, and organizations whose knowledge and contributions shape the studio's projects and teaching.
Chris Woebken co-founded Extrapolation Factory in 2012. He has held residencies at Rhizome, Eyebeam, Headlands Center for the Arts, MacDowell, Pioneer Works, and the Walker Art Center. His work has been exhibited at MoMA, the New Museum, and the National Museum of China, and is held in the collections of MoMA and the Nevada Museum of Art. He holds an MA in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art.
Full CV
Who gets counted? This question connects projects across the practice. Animal Superpowers (2007–present), developed with Kenichi Okada and now being revisited for a new edition planned for 2027, invites children to explore the sensory worlds of other species. The Office of Non-Human Standing (2026–present) approaches the question through civic institutions. Its speculative legal filings describe the ecological contributions of oysters, horseshoe crabs, and bees as labor, asking how bureaucracies might recognize other species without reducing their lives to human measures of value.
Questions of participation extend to authorship, compensation, and credit. For New Public Hydrant, young collaborators in the Water Is… workshop with Youth Design Center received honoraria and were credited as concept co‑creators. MoMA commissioned and funded design development, then acquired four prototypes. A portion of the acquisition proceeds was donated to the center, returning resources to the community that helped shape the work. An ongoing collaborations index makes visible the people, groups, and organizations whose knowledge and contributions shape the studio's projects and teaching.
Chris Woebken co-founded Extrapolation Factory in 2012. He has held residencies at Rhizome, Eyebeam, Headlands Center for the Arts, MacDowell, Pioneer Works, and the Walker Art Center. His work has been exhibited at MoMA, the New Museum, and the National Museum of China, and is held in the collections of MoMA and the Nevada Museum of Art. He holds an MA in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art.
Full CV
Commissioned installations. Objects and environments that invite people to explore other futures through everyday actions. New Public Hydrant
Youth-led public programs. Workshops in which young people shape the concepts, followed by supported design development and public presentation. Climate Futures, with Extrapolation Factory
Research partnerships. We work with institutions and communities to investigate questions through fieldwork, scenarios and prototypes. Partnerships can take the form of decision simulations, youth-led programs or public experiments, with a shared question and a clear plan for what follows. Explore research partnerships
Projects begin with a conversation about the question, place and people involved. Together we define the format, resources and timeline, including participation, credit and compensation, then develop the work through research, workshops and prototypes.
For commissions, exhibitions, public programs and research partnerships, write with a little about your context and proposed timing:
hello@chriswoebken.com
studio location: 21 Flushing Ave, Building 212, Suite 201, Brooklyn, NY 11205
socials: Instagram, Flickr, Youtube
elsewhere: co-curating this NYC arts events gcal
Current & Upcoming:
Jan 2027: ANIMALS TURN, HART HOUSE, Hong Kong
Fall 2026: Water // Ways Cloudburst Initiative, commissioned by City as a Living Laboratory (CALL), NY, US
Fall 2026: Participatory Art For Society Engagement with Ocean and Water with partners blueOASIS and Anda&Fala, Azores, PT, EU
Fall 2026: Bard Graduate Center, Visiting Fellowship, NYC, US