Invasive Species: Turning Art into Action
Invasive Species: Turning Art into Action
Making one of the world’s biggest biodiversity challenges impossible to ignore.
Invasive alien species are a major driver of biodiversity loss, disrupting ecosystems, threatening native species, and affecting communities and economies around the world.
Together with Woven Studio, Fauna & Flora and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Villars Institute is helping bring this often overlooked challenge to life through art, science and education.
The collaboration connects two complementary projects: INVASIVA, a data-driven ecological artwork that makes the impact of invasive alien species physically tangible, and The Invaders, an immersive learning module that brings the same challenge into schools and gives students the tools to investigate and respond to it.
INVASIVA
An artwork that pushes you out of your ecosystem.
INVASIVA is a data-driven ecological artwork by artist Thijs Biersteker and Woven Studio, created in collaboration with Fauna & Flora, the Villars Institute, the World Biodiversity Forum and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Premiering at the World Biodiversity Forum and traveling to the CBD COP in Armenia as the central artwork, INVASIVA sets out to let invasive alien species invade the global agenda.
At its centre is a 4.5-metre inflatable sculpture depicting invasive alien species. Powered by scientific data, it expands into the space, physically showing how these species can displace native life.
As it grows and retreats, INVASIVA makes biodiversity loss tangible—and shows that informed action can help reduce its impact.
Turning data into experience
The species woven across INVASIVA span land, water and air, from water hyacinth and zebra mussels to black rats and feral cats.
They are not presented as villains. In many cases, these species become harmful only when human activity introduces them into ecosystems where they do not naturally belong.
By bringing together scientific data, art and technology, INVASIVA reveals the connections between biodiversity, trade, tourism, human behaviour and ecological change, transforming a complex global issue into an experience audiences can see, feel and remember.
The Invaders
A learning module about invasive alien species that invades the classroom.
The Invaders is an interdisciplinary learning experience developed by Woven Foundation, Fauna & Flora and the Villars Institute.
Students explore biodiversity and ecosystems alongside wider questions about human activity, sustainability, systems, communication and creative response.
The experience is modular and adaptable. It can be delivered as a multi-week interdisciplinary unit, a focused learning module or an immersive school day.
Schools receive lesson plans, field guides, curriculum connections, student prompts, access to the AI learning assistant Æther and the inflatable artwork system.
how it works
1. Investigate
2. Experience
3. Take action
Designed for Interdisciplinary Learning
The Invaders is designed for the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme (MYP) and connects learning across Sciences, Individuals and Societies, and the Arts.
Students explore biodiversity and ecosystems alongside wider questions about human activity, sustainability, systems, communication and creative response.
The experience is modular and adaptable. It can be delivered as a multi-week interdisciplinary unit, a focused learning module or an immersive school day.
Schools receive lesson plans, field guides, curriculum connections, student prompts, access to Æther and the inflatable artwork system.
Pilot Program
The first pilot cohort will run from Q4 2026 to Q4 2027, with three schools selected globally to experience and help shape The Invaders.
Interested in bringing The Invaders to your school? Contact courses@villars.org to learn more.
