J—KASPER
Jeff Kasper is an artist, writer, and educator working in public art, design, cultural accessibility, and social engagement.
He creates text-based projects, social spaces, publications, games, digital media, exhibitions, community workshops, and participatory learning projects, often in partnership with organizations. His artworks center dialogical, reflective, and instructional texts, as
well as pedagogical objects that prompt meditation, relationship
building, and serious play. Based on his own lived experiences and observations, much of his recent
projects explore topics of social support, safety, and proximity.
Through his arts-based organizing, he opens up spaces for
(re)imagining accessible and trauma-sensitive futures.
Arts Organizing, Design, Facilitation
Kasper sustains an active career centering public programming, creative direction, and facilitation for arts-based community engagement. This involves graphic design, strategic planning, and development of programs for outreach, arts infrastructure, mental health and disability culture, accessibility, and artist services.
Over the last decade, he has worked with numerous cultural, grassroots, and social planning organizations in New York City to realize over 300 projects with hundreds of artists and community members. He co founded Civic Art Lab with Laura Scherling in 2010. The platform brings together hundreds each year for hands-on workshops and sustainability initiatives.
Projects & Awards
Kasper recently exhibited a two public art commissions in New York City Parks with ArtBridge and Meta Open Arts (2021-2022). Past solo projects have included Give & Take Care at Downtown Art (2019) and Boundary Objects at University of Massachusetts Herter Art Gallery (2020). He facilitated Designing Safe Spaces and contributed to Don’t Mind If I Do at Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (2023), and the series Access/Points: Approaches to Disability Arts at CUE Art Foundation (2017-2018), and participated in public programs exploring access, disability justice, and the arts, at the Brooklyn Museum, BRIC, Rethinking Residencies Symposium, Inclusive Arts Vermont, Queens Museum, Dedalus Foundation, and The 8th Floor. Kasper was awarded residencies and grants from National Arts Strategies, New England Foundation for the Arts, The Umbrella Art Center, Art Beyond Sight, and Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts.
Arts Organizing, Design, Facilitation
Kasper sustains an active career centering public programming, creative direction, and facilitation for arts-based community engagement. This involves graphic design, strategic planning, and development of programs for outreach, arts infrastructure, mental health and disability culture, accessibility, and artist services.
Over the last decade, he has worked with numerous cultural, grassroots, and social planning organizations in New York City to realize over 300 projects with hundreds of artists and community members. He co founded Civic Art Lab with Laura Scherling in 2010. The platform brings together hundreds each year for hands-on workshops and sustainability initiatives.
Projects & Awards
Kasper recently exhibited a two public art commissions in New York City Parks with ArtBridge and Meta Open Arts (2021-2022). Past solo projects have included Give & Take Care at Downtown Art (2019) and Boundary Objects at University of Massachusetts Herter Art Gallery (2020). He facilitated Designing Safe Spaces and contributed to Don’t Mind If I Do at Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (2023), and the series Access/Points: Approaches to Disability Arts at CUE Art Foundation (2017-2018), and participated in public programs exploring access, disability justice, and the arts, at the Brooklyn Museum, BRIC, Rethinking Residencies Symposium, Inclusive Arts Vermont, Queens Museum, Dedalus Foundation, and The 8th Floor. Kasper was awarded residencies and grants from National Arts Strategies, New England Foundation for the Arts, The Umbrella Art Center, Art Beyond Sight, and Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts.
Teaching & Engaged Scholarship
Kasper is Assistant Professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst where he is a Public Interest Technology (PIT) faculty affiliate and is an associate of The Institute for Diversity Sciences health research group. Previously he served as the Undergraduate Program Director in the Department of Art. From 2020 to 2021, he was a Faculty Fellow with the office of Civic Engagement & Service Learning. In 2022, he was a Kahn Institute Fellow in Health and Medicine, Culture and Society at Smith College.
He is the co-editor of More Art In The Public Eye available with Duke University Press. Kasper’s various contributions to socially-engaged art and design can be found in the books, Feminist Designer: On the personal and political in design (MIT), Art As Social Action: The Principles and Practices of Teaching Social Practice Art (Skyhorse Press), Futures Worth Preserving: Cultural Constructions of Nostalgia and Sustainability (Transcript Press), and Bridging Communities Through Socially Engaged Art (Routledge).
Peer-Mentor
As a peer-mentor with New York Foundation for the Arts Immigrant Artist Program in Social Practice and as Director of Engagement at More Art, he supported the work of nearly 200 individual artists and activists.
Education & Training
His undergraduate and professional education merged graphic design, public service, and urban studies. He received a MFA in social practice from Queens College CUNY with distinctions in digital media and critical theory. Alongside his teaching, he is pursuing advanced graduate study in trauma-sensitive strategies and expressive therapies for community-based arts and learning.