Adelheid Mers

An artist and educator, I hold a guiding interest in facilitating as creative practice, exploring with others what is at play in embodied and dialogic meaning making. I think about the objects and scores my practice produces as tools for self-making, or even self-management, which is always deeply contingent.

This interest was shaped by many years of working with open-ended and participatory art forms, such as light installations, curatorial and interview-based projects, and diagrammatic drawings, all of which are experiences I continue to draw on.

In my studio, you can find objects and prototypes, many devised in co-creation processes with other artists and cultural workers. With these objects, I contribute to exhibitions and travel to conferences to hold workshops that offer experiences of embodied and dialogic meaning making.

I also initiated and now co-lead two working groups to connect with others that work similarly. One is the Working Group Performance and Pedagogy at Performance Studies international (PSi), the other is the Special Interest Group Facilitating as Creative Practice, with the Society for Artistic Research (SAR). Through these groups, I am learning just how many artists think about and organize their work around forms of facilitating.

My work now sits adjacent to coaching and even in a small part to art therapy, in that it is centered on presence and trust. It draws on artistic research, pedagogy, and performance studies by focusing on embodied experience, reflection, and play. Sociology, cultural policy studies, and media ecology are sources of situating the work systemically. Philosophies with pragmatist and hermeneutic bends contribute questions about interpretation, conversation, and language.

I also write about my work, publishing conference proceedings and peer-reviewed journals, and contributing to edited collections.