Michael Wang is an artist whose work explores the entanglements between human activity, ecological systems, and the flows of capital and culture. His projects often chart overlooked or invisible processes—biological, geological, or economic—and reframe them as sites of artistic and ethical inquiry.

In Extinct in New York, an exhibition on Governors Island organized with the Swiss Institute, Wang researched plant, lichen, and algae species once native to New York City but no longer found growing naturally in any of the five boroughs. He constructed four bespoke greenhouses to house these displaced organisms and trained a team of caretakers to maintain them during the course of the exhibition. The work functioned simultaneously as a living archive, a fragile monument to loss, and a rehearsal for reintroduction. At the conclusion of the project, the species were transplanted into public parks and gardens across the city, where they were given the possibility to once again take root.

Through such projects, Wang examines how art can intervene in questions of extinction, conservation, and reparation—foregrounding the complex negotiations between natural history, urban life, and the cultural imagination.