Tara Geer and Host Susan Grelock Yusem
What Do We Know? Exploring Non-Western Approaches to Wisdom
“Imagine you are in an aging public school classroom with 30 elementary students. No one is facing forward and everyone is squirming in their seats. You put up an image of a young girl walking with a bear past graffitied doors. There is a sucked-in-breath moment of surprise. You wait, maybe even count silently to five, and then you ask, ‘What’s going on in this picture?’”
That is how Tara Geer describes starting a Visual Thinking Strategies session. Tara, an artist and the director of Commonweal’s Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) program, says, “What comes next is always a surprise. If I get it right, I have the honor of hearing the unique minds in that room grappling, judging, wondering, looking, listening—and a weaving together of the real diversity of that classroom.” Join us for a 60-minute conversation with VTS Director Tara Geer, hosted by Commonweal’s Head of Innovation and Strategy, Susan Grelock Yusem.
Tara Geer
Tara makes, teaches, and studies drawing. Her drawings are in the collections of the Morgan Museum, the Parrish Museum, and the William Louis Dreyfus Foundation. Her work with the 6-woman activist collective, Victory Garden, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The New York Historical Society, and The Beinecke Library at Yale University. There are two books about her work, Carrying Silence: The Drawings of Tara Geer; and New York Studio Conversations. She has been teaching for three decades, and, since 2012, she has been teaching in the Art and Art Education program at Teachers College, Columbia University. She was funded by The National Science Foundation, in collaboration with a team of neuroscientists, to study Harnessing the Power of Drawing for the Enhancement of Learning, and is now researching eye motion in art viewing. She founded and directs the grassroots groups, Action Potluck, and Sanctuary Neighborhoods.
Host Susan Grelock Yusem, PhD
Susan is a researcher, storyteller, and super-curious human. She believes that psychology can be a generative force for environmental sustainability and social justice. Susan is a depth-based community psychologist who has built teams and led communications for over 20 years in the regenerative food space. Her work is centered in the imaginal and narrative repair. She is a reader, writer, and runner. She serves as Commonweal’s Head of Innovation and Strategy. susangrelockyusem.site
