Heather Schatz

Heather Schatz is an artist, educator, and the originator of Artist Thinking, a cognitive and conceptual approach to art-making that challenges conventional structures in the art education field. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University’s School of the Arts and a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture with honors from the University of California, Berkeley. Schatz is currently on the faculty in the Art Department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the MFA Art Practice program at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York, where she mentors graduate students in an interdisciplinary, low-residency program. Previously, she was an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University, where she was a founding faculty member of the Digital Media Center and played a key role in developing interdisciplinary curricula across Visual Arts, Film, Writing, and Theater.

Schatz is the co-founder of ChanSchatz, an internationally recognized artist collaborative that pioneered a participatory approach to art-making. Their work combined traditional media with event-based, socially engaged practices that explored collective authorship in the art-making process.  Their projects have engaged diverse communities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Iraq, Egypt, and Thailand, addressing themes such as human trafficking, the financial system, and the Iraq War. Schatz’s art has been exhibited internationally in museums and institutions such as the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, the Saatchi Gallery in London, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, and the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York. Schatz’s art has been featured in major publications, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and ARTnews, and is held in prominent public and private collections.