The processes of conflict transformation is inseparable, for me, from the creative process.  My work as a creative artist has been, from the very beginning, totally centered on fostering collaboration and navigating conflicts that arise in the process of making work with other artists.  Additionally, my work as an arts administrator has demanded that I employ negotiation and mediation skills in situations that take place within the structures and organizations that create the public framework for various creative arts, including between labor unions and arts management.

It occurred to me that since I was already practicing a kind of conflict transformation in my creative and professional life, it might be useful to learn some theory.  Last summer, I applied and was accepted to George Mason University / ICAR’s Graduate Certificate Program in Conflict Analysis and Resolution; I’ve been commuting from Brooklyn to to Northern, VA to attend classes about twice a month, since August 2010.  What interested me in particular about ICAR was Dr. Sara Cobb’s work in Narrative Mediation, which endeavors to use language and story to transform conflicted relationships into collaborative ones.  As an artist who works with narrative, I felt an immediate connection.  Arriving at ICAR felt like the beginning of a new journey towards a deeper, more service-oriented way of making art.

In the ICAR program this year, I’ve had the opportunity to investigate how the performing arts can be an effective conflict transformation practice and how the conflict field can go deeper into the practice of the creative process as means of transforming conflict into collaboration.  My work in conflict transformation presently focuses on how the creative process can nurture individuals’ and groups’ present potential while helping them re-imagine a preferred, shared future.