Profile:Deirdre Visser Arts Curator

"I like to think of curating as facilitating," explains the new arts curator, Deirdre Visser. "I facilitate conversations, literally and figuratively. I also see my work as imagining and realizing collaborations between CIIS and artists and organizations in the community."

Visser comes to CIIS after a career of teaching photography, digital media, and art history at Mills College and California College of the Arts. The first exhibition she curated at CIIS, "Between the Lines," by local artist Annie Vought, drew close to 100 participants to the opening, and transformed the Institute's Minna Center into an installation where cut-out and handwritten words brought the artist's emotions and thoughts into sharp focus.

"CIIS is in a moment of wanting to expand the role of the arts both within the Institute and as a vehicle to reach out to the larger community," says Visser.

Her vision for the arts program at CIIS is wide. "We're trying to develop the capacity to bring emerging artists here from around the country," she says.

But she's also centered on the local arena. Visser is working with neighborhood organizations and with community groups to pool resources to increase the audience for the arts South of Market in San Francisco. One upcoming project will include a collaboration with Counterpulse, a theater located just one block from the CIIS Main Building.

Visser hopes to build local ties through an upcoming project in development with renowned artist Pato Hebert. The planned collaboration involves the artist working with the Wellness Centers in three San Francisco high schools. The art produced will be displayed both at the schools and at the Institute, and possibly in public venues as well.
Another initiative she's working on is creating stronger ties between the student body and the arts exhibition program. "I'm very aware of the community function of art," she says. "Peggy Schadler of 1000 Faces theater company in Virginia recently came here to give a mask-making workshop. As I was hanging the masks from the class in the hallway, people were already bringing friends over to see what they had created."

One change Visser has made is to rename the arts program from its former title of Spirit in the Arts.

"The new name is The Arts at CIIS," she says. "‘Spirit' is still very much part of the discussion, but now the name gives us more room to take in the full range of expression, in keeping with the Institute's ideals."