Jeffery Kasper

Jeff Kasper is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and educator, specializing in public art, design, and social engagement.

He creates text-based projects, social spaces, publications, games, objects, exhibitions, community education, and workshops, often in partnership with community-based and non-profit organizations. Much of his recent work merges the tools and techniques of graphic design with participatory learning and contemplative practices, to examine the dynamics of social support, proximity, and safety. His artworks center dialogical, reflective, and instructional texts that often prompt meditation, relationship building, and serious play. Through his arts-based organizing, he opens up spaces for disability culture and (re)imagining accessible and trauma-aware futures.

Over the last decade, he worked with various cultural, grassroots, and social planning organizations to realize over 300 public programs, publications, and exhibitions with hundreds of artists, partners, and the public at large. Civic Art Lab, the public pedagogy platform he co-founded in 2010, brings together hundreds each year for hands-on workshops and sustainability initiatives. As a peer-mentor and fellowship facilitator with organizations, New York Foundation for the Arts and More Art, he has supported the work of nearly 200 individual socially engaged artists. Kasper retains an active consultancy practice where he works on graphic design, strategic planning, and creating programs for outreach, disability advocacy, health and well-being, accessibility, and artist services.

Kasper has chaired and presented his research at numerous conferences and professional forums including College Art Association (CAA), Foundations in Art: Theory and Education (FATE), Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present, Interaction Design and Children Conference at Parsons School of Design, Sesame Workshop, and New York Hall of Science, The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Arts Access Summit hosted by Inclusive Arts Vermont, Rethinking Residencies Symposium at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, Teaching Social Practice at UMass Dartmouth, MoMA Department of Education's Prime Time Exchange, AIGA Phoenix Design Week, and the Art Directors Club.

Art and Social Engagement; Graphic Design; Inclusive Design Education; Trauma-informed Pedagogy for Arts-based Teaching & Learning; Disability Culture and Accessibility in Art and Design; Popular Education; Service Learning; Social Sustainability; Arts in Public Health

Kasper, J. (2023) On embodying vulnerability through design in Place, A., Feminist Designer: On the Personal and Political in Design. MIT Press (LINK)

Gauthier, D., Biddle, E., Blosser, J.,Pindell, H., Kasper, J. (2023) excerpts from Structures of Support for the Whole Artist in Bringing Worlds Together: A Rethinking Residencies Reader. (LINK)

Kasper, J. (2021) Practicing Distance, open access workbook, Art and Social Practice Archive, Portland State University Special Collections (LINK)

Kasper, J. (2020) Critique As Support: A Workbook for Students, digital workbook, Cleveland Institue of Art, TITLE TBD Exhibition (LINK)

Martegani, M., Kasper, J. and Drew, E. (2020) More Art in the Public Eye. Durham: Duke University Press

Scherling, L., & Kasper, J. (2019) Civic Art Lab: Reflections on Art, Design, and Sustainability. In: Schröder, A., Völker, N., Winkler, R., Clucas, T., Futures Worth Preserving. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag

Bass, C., & Kasper, J. (2019) Field Notes from Studio 9 in Wexler, A. & Sabbaghi, V., Bridging Communities through Socially Engaged Art. New York: Routledge

Camacho, A. & Kasper, J. (2018) What We Produce: Social Models that can be Re-purposed and Reapplied, an interview of Pablo Helguera in Sholette, G., Bass, C., and Social Practice Queens in Art As Social Action: An Introduction to the Principles and Practices of Teaching Social Practice Art.  New York: Allworth Press (Contributing Editor with Social Practice Queens)

Jeff Kasper has exhibited nationally and internationally, at New York City Department of Parks & Recreation comissioned by ArtBridge and Meta Open Arts, Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art, The 8th Floor, Dedalus Foundation, Queens Museum, Cleveland Institute of Art, Helmhaus (Switzerland), Association of Fine Arts of Serbia, Shape Arts (United Kingdom), New York University Gallatin Galleries, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Project Space, the 26th International Graphic Design Biennial Brno (Czech Republic), Okno Gallery, (Russia), The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center, The International Graduate Center for the Study of Culture at the University of Giessen (Germany), The James Gallery at the CUNY Graduate Center, The Graduate Institute for Design, Ethnography & Social Thought at The New School, Bronx River Art Center, and the Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology at Connecticut College.

Kasper is currently a Table of Voices member at Museum of Fine Arts Boston consulting with Access and Inclusion Department on how to meaningfully engage disability culture and community throughout museum programs. He the was a Creative Communities Fellow with National Arts Strategies and Public Interest Technology Fellow at UMass (2023) and was awarded a UMass Civic Engagement & Service Learning Faculty Fellowship from UMass (2020-21) and Fellowships in Health and Medicine, Culture and Society (2022) and Social Ecology (2020) from Smith College, Kahn Liberal Art Institute. Kasper has also been awarded residencies, training, grants, and project support from New England Foundation for the Arts, MASSMoCA Assets for Artists, and Western Massachusetts Community Foundation, Downtown Art, CUE Art Foundation, Art Beyond Sight, and Disability Arts NYC Taskforce, The William Morris Society, among others. His work with nonprofits have been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Arts Council, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Vilcek Foundation, and Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation. Kasper often sits on peer review boards for arts awards and arts-based approaches to public health. He is on the advisory board of Paperbark Literary Magazine, associate of the UMass Amherst Institute for Diversity Sciences health equity research group, advisor for Social Practice CUNY, and strategic consultant for More Art where he previously served as Director of Engagement.

Art 131 - Foundation Studio 1
Art 264 - Digital Design
Art 364 - Design Thinking for Social Innovation
Art 389 - Portfolio Practicum
Art 464 - Design Projects and Production
Art 490 - Topics in Design: Public Art
Art 795 - Graduate Critiques Seminar