Congratulations to Kira Sarai Hegeman, a doctoral student in Art Education, who has been selected to receive a 2017 Innovative and Interdisciplinary Research Grant from the Graduate School!

Hegeman proposed a study of an art site in Minneapolis, MN called Elf Door, which is a little door in a tree where people leave letters and objects for an ‘elf’ who individually responds to each letter, leaving an archive of each question and response in the tree. The grant will allow her to essentially do a pilot study for her dissertation, which considers the nature of participation in public art interventions. Hegeman plans to apply findings from this research to a public, artistic intervention in Athens, GA, focused on creating an informal space for individuals to creatively engage with art, objects, and other Athens residents.

The Graduate School established the Innovative and Interdisciplinary Research Grant as part of its strategic initiative to support innovation and interdisciplinarity in the research being conducted by doctoral students. Hegeman’s study uses contemporary art practices as a guiding methodology, incorporating visual art making practices such as drawing and printmaking as well as more traditional methods of observation, interview, and document analysis as tools for gathering data. She will receive $2,500 to defray the costs of her proposed project.