Artist Panel: Corpus: Bodies of Data Exhibition by Data Through Design

Data Through Design (DxD) is an independent, volunteer-run collective which organizes an annual art exhibition featuring works that creatively analyze, interpret and interrogate data made available on NYC Open Data, a valuable civic resource aimed at increasing information access and transparency. Each year a different theme is developed to challenge artists to surface hidden stories, patterns and connections in data, to examine its shortcomings, and to question claims to objectivity that data representations project. These novel and artistic creations harness the potential for data to enliven and deepen our understanding of life in the city. Featured projects are created by artists, activists, software engineers, graphic designers, architects, urban technologists, map-makers, and other creative practitioners; all working with the city’s open data sets. 

About NYC Open Data Week

DxD is part of NYC Open Data Week, a week-long series of events and workshops organized by our partners at the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation’s (OTI) Office of Data Analytics and BetaNYC. For more information about NYC Open Data Week, including Open Data Week 2025 events and the NYC School of Data community conference, please visitopen-data.nyc.

Data Through Design’s 2025 exhibition and programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Artswith the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and is also supported byPratt Academic Senate. The 2025 exhibition is presented in partnership with BRIC. Data Through Design is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization through The Fund for the City of New York (FCNY) partner project program. For more about DxD or to make a donation toward future exhibitions, please visit DataThroughDesign.com/about. 

Jamie Allen is a writer based in Los Angeles. His first novel, The Dashing Diner, was published in November 2024. Earlier in the year, his script Double D was a semifinalist in 2024 Austin Film Festival screenwriting contest. Jamie is the creator and writer behind the Squirrel Census, a design, science, conceptual art, and storytelling project. Started in Atlanta in 2012, the five-person Squirrel Census team led the first-ever complete count of Eastern gray squirrels in New York City’s Central Park in 2018. The results were published in the Central Park Squirrel Census 2019 Report, and the Census was featured in The New York Times, 99% Invisible, NPR, and many other outlets. The Census has also released squirrel data, stories, jokes, songs, and other tidbits of entertainment through a 1-800 number (833-NYC-SQRL). Jamie has published longform journalism, essays, short stories, poems, and humor in outlets including McSweeney's, The Paris Review’s “The Daily,” The Oxford American, The Missouri Review, Grantland, Garden & Gun, Atlanta Magazine, New South, and many others. 

Simon(he/him) and Elias(he/him) have been working together since 2021, when they collaborated on several projects at the design office NADAAA. Since then, Simon has begun pursuing his SMArchS in Design and Computation degree at MIT, where he is continuing research into overlooked infrastructures and their civic potentials. He holds an M.Arch degree from Princeton University. Elias is currently pursuing his M.Arch II degree from the Harvard GSD, and holds a B.Arch from Cornell University.

Mauricio Delfin (he/him) is an artist, researcher, and expert in cultural policies and civic technologies, focusing on making culture and arts policies more democratic and transparent. As director of Realidad Visual, a Peruvian media arts organization, he headed the creation of artworks, international media art exhibitions, publications, and initiatives that examined the intersections of art, culture, and technology. Mauricio’s creative practice involves documentary filmmaking and other time-based and sequential media. He currently works as a member of UNESCO’s Expert Facility and Co-directs the Culture and Arts Policy Institute in NYC.

We are a multidisciplinary group of artists and designers interested in questions of environmental justice, climate adaptation and creative responses to acute and chronic community disruptions. Jill Sigman, founder of Jill sigman/Thinkdance, asks questions through the medium of the body, creating experimental performance works that incorporate clay, found objects and soundscapes that explore human experiences. Mariya Checkmarova and HK Dunston, designers and urban planners, collaborated on a Data x Design project in 2020 entitled Emblems: Symbolizing City Data. Abigail Regner, ceramic artist and educator, recently completed a residency at The Urban Soil Institute at the SWALE House on Governors Island, collaborating with over 100 visitors to create a monumental ceramic “community dream orb”, which will live in the Harlem Sculpture Garden. 

Michelle (she/her) is a technologist, researcher, and artist exploring the intersections of data, design, and urban life. As a Cantonese American, her work is shaped by a pursuit of identity and multicultural motifs.

She is pursuing her M.S. in Urban Technology at Cornell, worked with the United Nations, developed urban air quality detection algorithms, and co-founded the Art + Tech Collective. Through digital fabrication and data storytelling, she examines environmental justice, using technology to elevate marginalized voices and reimagine the built environment.

Cass Yao explores the concept of bodily modification, iInvestigating the construct of alternative corporeality. Yao envisions deformed representation of flesh, their endurance to violence, and their innate restorative resilience. Alison Long is a interdisciplinary designer specialized in data visualization and the digital humanities and currently is a graduate student at Pratt Institute. Keyarow is a qualitative UX researcher, focusing on digital analysis and community advocacy.

Matías and Arden are NYC-based creative technologists exploring the intersection of society and biology through immersive installations and simulations. With backgrounds in computer science, they bring complementary perspectives: Matías, from Chile, approaches work through data science and interactive experiences, while Arden, from California, focuses on complex systems and spatial design. Together, they create ambitious works that invite speculation on the future. Both are completing their MFA in Design and Technology at Parsons School of Design.

Natch Quinn (he/him) is a designer/maker specializing in fabrication, architecture, and data visualization. Raised in shops and studios emphasizing materiality and craft, he brings a tactile and detailed lens to his work across scales and mediums. His designs combine both digital and analog processes, bringing handmade details and customization to modern digital fabrication techniques. Centering environmental topics and critical thinking methodologies, he believes in the power of visual artifacts. 

Nishra Ranpura (she/her) is an interdisciplinary designer, researcher, creative technologist, and educator. Her work explores the interactions between the physical and the digital through experimental and speculative narratives. She researches, practices, and teaches across the disciplines of new media, digital fabrication, digital design, creative technology, and design research. Essentially, she makes things and breaks things. Sometimes, she writes, and oftentimes, she wonders.

Aida Razavilar is a systems neuroscientist at Mount Sinai working to advance scientific facts, foundations, and subsequent discourse around psychiatric disorders. With a multidisciplinary toolkit rooted in science, she seeks to similarly illuminate insights through the arts. Paul Hanna is a multimedia artist, filmmaker, and graduate student at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. Through his art, Paul seeks to challenge and address themes within race, ecology, and technology.