Normally when I think of an "art museum," I think of paintings or sculptures that are highly revered and definitely cannot be touched. However, this definition of mine completely changed on January 6, 2020, when I had the pleasure of visiting the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. This museum features pieces that combine aestheticism, science, and environmentalism. Here are a few pieces that stood out to me.

Plasticeberg, 2017

Plasticeberg, a piece created by Jorge Gamboa, really stuck out to me because from first glance, I couldn't tell what was different about it. The imagery is very powerful in that it shows us a perspective of the iceberg we see (the tip) and the perspective we don't see (the plastic bag). Because we do not live in water, we don't get to experience the pollution we are putting out, although it's hurting our wildlife. The piece to me was a reminder of how much waste we dump into the oceans. It isn't a piece that directly relates to climate change resilience, but it makes you think, "How can we as consumers and waste-producers be more environmentally conscious about our waste and significantly limit the waste we put out into our environment?"

FPT University Ho Chi Minh City, 2016 — ongoing

I am Vietnamese-American, and so seeing this piece lit up my eyes. I never knew that Ho Chi Minh City was developing a building filled with trees and greenery. Instead of just deforesting the area to build the structure, they decided to incorporate plants and nature as a prime component of the building, which I have never seen done in this magnitude before. It screams urban resilience because although a university building is being erected, nature is still present and coexisting, providing fresh air and taking up carbon.

Infinity Burial Suit, 2008 — ongoing

Something I never thought about before was whether there was an unconventional funerary alternative, another way your body can leave the earth other than by casket or cremation. Well, now there may be a new option. This voguish, monochrome Infinity Burial Suit acts as a cover for a dead body, just like a coffin does, but offers much more to the decomposition process post-funeral. Jae Rhim Lee, a Korean artist, created a unique burial suit made of cotton, and inserted inside a mesh of proprietary materials and mycelia, or fungal threads. These threads grow into mushrooms, and together, with the mix of materials, absorb and erase toxins that the body emits. Into the soil these toxins go! The fungi also decompose matter, aiding the creatures in the soil with this process as well. I believe this is an intriguing concept, and it would allow people to leave this planet in style while helping our decomposers.

GoatMan, 2014-16

For three days, Thomas Thwaites, a British designer and writer, lived in the Swiss Alps — as a goat. Over a year prior to this feat, Thwaites researched and eventually built an exoskeleton with prosthetic limbs and an artificial rumen. With the exoskeleton, he was able to turn quadrupedal, and the man-made stomach allowed him to survive on a goat's diet full of grass and more grass. His project was a success, and he authored a book recounting his experiences and discoveries of living in a goat herd and of the natural world.

This was just a small glimpse of the experience, so I hope you all will be able to visit the Cooper Hewitt too!