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Last year Creative Time —the Manhattan arts nonprofit helmed by Anne Pasternak—helped artist Trevor Paglen launch a project into space. The piece, a gold-encased disc etched with 100 microscopic images documenting life on Earth, hitched a ride on a satellite that now orbits the planet and which may one day outlive it.

Shepherding this undertaking was one of the organization’s greatest logistical challenges to date, according to Pasternak, who has served as its president and artistic director since 1994, working with top talents to enliven public spaces in New York and beyond. But the project also encapsulates her thinking about the expansive role art should play in the world as we know it.

Under her leadership, Creative Time has grown into one of the country’s most ambitious public-art groups, staging happenings at landmarks such as Ground Zero (Julian LaVerdiere and Paul Myoda’s beams of light) and Grand Central Terminal (Nick Cave’s surreal costumed dancers). This October she will oversee the fifth annual Creative Time Summit , devoted to the impact of culture in cities. And the recently unveiled website Creative Time Reports continues to expand, hosting dispatches from around the globe.

“Artists matter—they should be weighing in on the issues of our time,” Pasternak says. Thanks to her, more and more are. creativetimerg

Click here to see a slide show of Creative Time's groundbreaking art events.