Dedicated to making possibility possible, we are a collective of technologists, scholars, artists, and theorists who are also storytellers centering the study of race and ecologies. Turning to human and non-human animals, plant life, and microorganisms as models of storytellers, we use immersive technologies, (VR, AR, sound design, films, video games) to produce solutions towards tackling climate crisis and racial injustice.
Founded by professor Tao Leigh Goffe in the summer of 2020, the laboratory works at the intersection of the Indigenous Americas and the transatlantic African diaspora. In 2021, she taught a studio course for Cornell Architecture School on Black and Indigenous Metropolitan ecologies. Dark Laboratory fosters a multimodal, interdisciplinary space for technology and the humanities. We bridge the gap between formal institutions and decentralized communities and networks.
Lab theoreticians and technicians explore intergenerational trauma and how storytelling can be a mode of redress and potential intergenerational healing. Dark Lab celebrates community knowledge so that those in higher education and the academy can listen and learn from local cultivators, practitioners, and artists by listening first.