EVENTS
MOTH Festival of Ideas & FORGE Gathering at NYU Law
A dynamic week of interdisciplinary exploration, innovation, and collaboration.
The Center for Human Rights and Global Justice hosted a weeklong series of events through the More-Than-Human Life (MOTH) Festival of Ideas 2025 and the Future of Human Rights and Governance (FORGE) Gathering 2025. These global gatherings will bring together thought leaders, advocates, and scholars to explore the most pressing issues of our time, from ecological emergencies to technological disruption to geopolitical shifts. Taking place at NYU Law, this dynamic week of innovation, and collaboration ran from March 10 to March 15, 2025.
Hosted by the Earth Rights Action and Research (TERRA) and the FORGE programs, both gatherings include closed-door, interactive scholar-practitioner sessions, as well as sessions open to the public in the evenings.
With creativity and interdisciplinarity at their heart, the open sessions include keynote talks, interviews, film screenings, book launches, poetry readings, and interdisciplinary performances, concerts, and an exhibit on display throughout the week.
NYU Law is honored to host these pivotal gatherings that bring together bold ideas, diverse voices, and meaningful action. At a time when global justice faces unprecedented challenges, we are committed to fostering a space for creative thinking and forward-looking solutions.
César Rodríguez-Garavito
Chair, Center for Human Rights & Global Justice.
About the MOTH 2025 Festival
The MOTH Festival of Ideas featured thinkers and doers from around the world advancing the rights, interests, and well-being of nonhumans, humans, and the web of life that sustains us all. Practitioners and scholars from a wide range of disciplines—including law, ecology, philosophy, biology, journalism, the arts and well beyond—are pursuing efforts to bring the more-than-human world into the ambit of moral, legal, and social concern. The MOTH Festival of Ideas featured over 100 thinkers and doers at the cutting edge of this rich and rapidly evolving field.
About the FORGE 2025 Gathering
With two days designed to foster a solutions-oriented community of legal experts, social scientists, governance professionals, and community-based practitioners, the FORGE program is dedicated to uncovering new approaches and solutions that reimagine rights and governance at a critical time for global justice.
With the hope of building momentum toward a brighter future, the MOTH 2025 Festival of Ideas and FORGE 2025 Gathering seek to transform perceptions and inspire a transnational community of practice with new ideas about global justice and more-than-human rights and encourage experimentation with new actions and approaches.
Conversation
An exploration of More-Than-Human-Rights, César Rodríguez-Garavito
- César Rodríguez-Garavito
Founding Director, NYU MOTH Program
Poetry
Las piedras que son vivas
- Fátima Vélez
Storyteller & Poet
Talk
Voices of the Forest, Indigenous Visions for the Future
- José María Gualinga
Kawsak Sacha Initiative
Sarayaku Indigenous People
Poetry
Bichos / Beasties
- Ezequiel Zaidenwerg
Writer, Translator, Educator & Photographer
Excerpts from Bichos / Beasties (Caracol/Snail; Avispa/Wasp; Polilla/Moth; Grillo/Cricket; Mariposa/Butterfly; Alacrán/Scorpion)
Conversation
Entangled Worlds: Conversation on the Wisdom of Fungi and Ecology
- Jonathan Watts
Global Environment Editor, The Guardian - Merlin Sheldrake
Biologist & Author of Entangled Life
Poetry
ECHOLOLOGY
- angela rawlings
Interdisciplinary Artist & Researcher
Excerpts from ECHOLOLOGY (I; WHOSE WHO; OWLUTION vs. WOLVOLUTION)
Talk
The Power of Story: Quiet Revolutions, Creativity and Cultural Transformation
- Sol Guy
Producer & Co-founder, Quiet
Conversation
Exploring Non-Human Intelligence through Whale Communication
- César Rodríguez-Garavito
Founding Director, NYU MOTH Program - David Gruber
Founder & President of Project CETI - Johanna Chao Kreillick
Senior Fellow, Center for Human Rights & Global Justice
Poetry
Mauve Sea-Orchids
- Lila Zemborain
Poet, Critic & NYU Clinical Professor
Conversation
Sand: Kinship Beyond Humans
- Christine Winter
Senior Lecturer, University of Otago
Book Launch
Mother Other: The Living Word, Creativity, and Belonging
- Elena Landinez
Visual Artist & NYU MOTH Art Fellow - Fátima Vélez
Storyteller & Poet - Jackie Gallant
Director of Programs, NYU MOTH Program
Poetry
Symbiosis
in the woodworking trades
- Neronessa
Poet & Impact Entrepreneur
Conversation
The Current Geopolitics of Human Rights & Justice
- César Rodríguez-Garavito
Founding Director, NYU FORGE Program - Elisa Morgera
UN Special Rapporteur on Climate Change & Human Rights - Margaret Sattherthwaite
UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers
Conversation
Creative Resistance in the Polycrisis
- Azita Ardakani Walton
Entrepreneur, Creative Strategist, and Philanthropist - Danielle Celermajer
Multispecies Justice Project, University of Sydney - Jack Saul
Psychologist and Artist, and Founding director of the International Trauma Studies Program
Conversation
Art and Environmental Justice
- Dylan McGarry
Artist & Co-Founder of Empatheatre - Elisa Morgera
UN Special Rapporteur on Climate Change & Human Rights
Remarks
Troy McKenzie
- Troy McKenzie
Dean, New York University School of Law
Book Launch
Book Launch: The Many Lives of James Lovelock
- Genevieve Guenther
Founding Director, End Climate Science - Jonathan Watts
Global Environment Editor, The Guardian - Andrew C. Revkin
Environmental Journalist & Author
Poetry
Do plants imagine flowers?
- Eliana Hernández-Pachón
Writer, Educator & Author of The Brush
Poetry
WET DREAM
- Erin Robinsong
Poet & Author of Rag Cosmology and Wet Dream
Excerpts from WET DREAM (THE FORCES THE FORMS; QUEEN OF HEAVEN; LUBE OF YOUR EYE)
Talk
Narrative Change: Why Stories Matter
- Stephen Duncombe
New York University & the Center for Artistic Activism
