ze/hir/hirs kelley@kelleymeister.com https://kelleymeister.com BIO Kelley Meister (pronouns: ze/hir/hirs) is an interdisciplinary artist who builds transformative experiences and environments that encourage empathy through a shared emotional experience or exploration. Over the last decade, hir work has focused on shared worldwide issues, such as climate change and nuclear war, in order to investigate empathetic responses that emerge from global threats and existential fear. Ze approaches hir art as both a researcher and a responsive human. Hir work primarily utilizes drawing, hand-made objects, digital media, and socially engaged, participatory events that overlap and intersect in order to create the desired impact. Kelley’s work has been shown around the country, including at the Contemporary Art Museum in Saint Louis; Soap Factory in Minneapolis; Counterpulse in San Francisco; and Anthology Film Archives and MIX Queer Experimental Film Festival in New York City. Hir work has received support from the Minnesota State Arts Board, Jerome Foundation, Northern Lights.mn, Pillsbury House Theatre, Camargo Foundation, and Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. In 2008, Kelley received hir MFA from Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Ze also works as a teaching artist in schools, libraries, museums/cultural production centers, and communities throughout Minnesota with COMPAS, the Science Museum of Minnesota, and Franconia Sculpture Park. TEACHING PHILOSOPHY & MENTORSHIP My teaching philosophy is rooted in inquiry, exploration, and process. Testing, experimenting, and intuition based on past experiences are big parts of my personal process, and when I facilitate art-making/creation with others, I emphasize how we can learn from failure, identify failure points, and embrace failure in its many forms. As a teacher/mentor, I learn and grow along with the people I work with as I respond to each person as a whole individual, with a lifetime of experiences and knowledge to bring to the table. Working with other people to capture their creative visions is an ever-inspiring process. I love helping people solve problems, brainstorming together, and discovering new ideas through research. For me, the arts are vital to how I relate to the world, how I input and output information, how I synthesize information and ideas, how I engage as a citizen, and so forth. I see arts as the center point of academics - all other disciplines can be mediated, experienced, explored, and digested through the arts. As if other academic disciplines created a multi-pointed asterisk/star and the arts lie at the center focal point. I think that the arts have the possibility to open up a space to consider our ecological, social, economical context by working to reveal the complexity of our belief systems and the emotional responses that inform the decisions we choose to make. And for that reason, I am invested in making art and facilitating that process with others.