Sprout Issue 2 cover

David Maddox, New York . 
4 January 2023

Art, Science, Action: Green Cities Re-imagined

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David Maddox

David Maddox

David loves people, urban spaces, and nature. He loves knowledge, creativity, and collaboration. He loves art, theatre, and music. In his life and work he has practiced in all of these. He is committed to the creation of sustainable, resilient, livable, and just cities, and after a PhD in ecology and statistics at Cornell he spent 10 years with The Nature Conservancy working on climate change and stewardship. After this, he became a composer, musician, playwright, and theatre artist. As a composer, musician, lyricist and playwright, he has created various recordings and eight produced works of musical theatre, three published by Dramatic Publishing, and with commissions for new work from organizations such as the Kennedy Center, Signature Theatre, and George Mason University. He has created sound designs and scores to over 150 productions around the U.S., and has worked in dance, museum design, and documentary film. David has received various awards for work in theater, including 13 Helen Hayes Award nominations (and one win), and various other awards. In 2012, David founded The Nature of Cities and remains its Executive Director. TNOC is a transdisciplinary essay and discussion site—with 1,000+ writers from around the world, from scientists to activists, designers to artists—on cities as ecosystems of people, nature, and infrastructure. Core to this work is knowledge building from multiple sources, putting people with different ideas and creativities together: from art to science to planning to community building. As part of this work, he has co-created a poetry journal (Sprout), curated many art+science exhibits, a comic book series on nature-based soutions, written many papers and book chapters in science and urbanism, is an international speaker, created a website of nature-themed graffiti, led community projects, edited two books of short fiction, and co-leads (with the US Forest Service) an arts residency program that creates teams of artists and scientists to learn from each other. This work that has led to many arts happenings, from murals and installations, to participatory meetings merging art, planning, science, and communities. He lives in New York City.

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