A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.
Adelheid Mers

Adelheid Mers

Professor, Chair

Personal Statement

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.

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

In this course, students will analyze and report on art world and cultural ecologies and explore professional work opportunities while reflecting on their current creative and scholarly interests. The course will lead to an expanded understanding of professional opportunities and the tools to pursue them while starting to identify each of our strengths and interests in identifying possible pathways for our lives that include (work life - studio life - love - finances - passion - family - etc...). Toward the end of the semester, as a way to bring into practice what was covered in the course, each student will participate in a class exhibition/presentation of current work and a portfolio of professional presentation materials to support one of the following (grant or job application and an exhibition/project proposal).

Readings will address issues in the class and will include, 'GETTING YOUR SHIT TOGETHER: THE ULTIMATE BUSINESS MANUAL FOR EVERY PRACTICING ARTIST', ART/WORK (Revised + Updated) by Heather Darcy Bhandari and Jonathan Melber, and selections from the follwing books; 'Living and sustaining a Creative Life by Sharon Louden, 'The Creative Habit: a Practical Guide' by Twyla Tharp, among others.

The deliverables in this class will include the following: 1) An illustrated verbal presentation of your current creative portfolio. 2) Research on one of the visitors to the class. 3) Class Exhibition including the entire class in an On Campus Space. 4) Printed and Digital Professional Portfolio.

Class Number

1571

Credits

3

Description

A master's thesis is required for completion of the master's degree in arts administration. The thesis should demonstrate a student's ability to design, justify, execute, evaluate, and present the results of original research or of a substantial project. In this class students work closely with an MAAAP program advisor, and meet frequently with other MAAAP participants in groups and in individual meetings. The thesis is presented, in both written and oral form, to a thesis committee for both initial and final approval. You must be a Master of Arts in Arts Administration and Policy student to enroll in this course.

Class Number

2442

Credits

3