Office of Non-Human Standing, 2026–present

Office of Non-Human Standing questions the categories institutions use to recognize other species. When the work of bass, horseshoe crabs and microbes is counted as an ecosystem service, interdependence turns into a transaction, priced for budgets, offsets and grant metrics. The Office borrows the forms of labor organizing instead and files speculative civic paperwork on their behalf. The comparison is deliberately imperfect. These workers can’t consent, organize or strike, and that gap shows what our categories include and what they leave out.

The project takes the form of a speculative civic registry. A digital interface turns observations of ecological work into documents modeled on civic and legal forms. In the installation, a dot-matrix printer produces duplicate records on carbon-copy paper; visitors take one copy away, becoming record-keepers for species unable to file their own claims. Developed through Rhizome’s Counterstructural Commons Residency, the project asks how ecological interdependence might become an institutional obligation.

Premiered at the New Museum on May 16, 2026, alongside other Rhizome Counterstructural Commons residents. The debut included an exclusive edition of 77 distinctive contract prints representing the founding dockets of the Registry.

Create and print your own contract here: Interdependence Registry