At the Summer Davos Forum in Tianjin Municipality, Dutch ecological artist Thijs Biersteker is turning complex climate data into immersive art that connects with people’s emotions.
His installation, “Fungal Faculty,” featured at the World Economic Forum’s 16th Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2025, transforms environmental data into experiences that audiences can feel.
“There’s a lot of data on how the environment is doing, but people don’t always understand what it means,” Biersteker said in an interview. “I bring the data alive in sculptures that make people feel the data.”
Biersteker believes that combining facts with emotions can inspire the climate action the world needs. “We live in an emotionally driven society. If you combine the facts and the emotions, then you can create the climate action that we need right now,” he said.
His work resonates with this year’s Summer Davos themes of green development and sustainable futures. Biersteker, who has collaborated with organizations like UNESCO and the World Health Organization, sees it as an artist’s role to help people understand what’s happening to our planet.
He is also exploring how artificial intelligence is reshaping art. “Fungal Faculty” questions whether we control AI or it controls us. “To me, technology is like paint. You use it to make your message clear, but you shouldn’t use it out of laziness,” he explained. “AI will speed up the creativity of humankind quickly.”
Biersteker praised China’s rapid shift toward sustainable energy and agriculture. “Bringing that alive would be a beautiful challenge,” he said. “China and the Netherlands both focus on sustainable farming and food security. Building works that speak to the imagination about how fragile or helpful it can be is something I would love to do.”
Through emotional storytelling powered by data and technology, Biersteker aims to make climate change not just understood, but truly felt by people around the world.
