Jeff Wood
This month’s installment of Beam’s Staff Spotlight series features Beam's Director of School Partnerships, Jeff Wood. As the Director of School Partnership, Jeff arranges collaborations between school faculty and Beam Project Designers to create ambitious and transformative project-based experiences for young people in their school communities. Speaking about his new role Jeff says, “I am using the experience that I gained in my role as a project designer, to pair up schools with Project Designers at Beam and help them figure out how to use our resources to make the experience of the students at their school, more dynamic and more valuable.”
Jeff first worked at Beam Camp in 2010 as a Domain Guest, and then he taught after-school workshops at Beam, later in 2016 he was hired as a full time Project Designer. Jeff's artistic practice is mixing different mediums to create the things he wants to create. Jeff says he started working at Beam Center because at Beam we work with youth from all over NYC and different mediums get mixed in order to create the many different projects we do with young people. Jeff also adds that he is a collaborative designer, where he works mainly in groups to create art pieces whether it is making puppets, performances, sculpting with clay, and more. Jeff continues to say, “I like the sense of group hope and faith. It’s like we're gonna make this weird thing and we all believe in it.”
When asked what his favorite moment is working at Beam Center. Jeff spoke about collaborating with youth and helping them create something using his expertise in mixing mediums. Jeff talked about a project he helped students at Brooklyn International High School make in 2016. Students put together a puppet performance for their 12th grade art class. This project used different art mediums like puppetry, sculpting, 3D printing, writing, among other things. Speaking about his experience while making the project Jeff says, “It was like the perfect project for me. The students brought so much amazing energy to it. I felt like I was just kind of helping them give birth to these things. That was really, really neat.”
Jeff studied Comparative Literature and Literary Arts at Brown University and received his Master of Fine Arts in Performance and Interactive Media Art from Brooklyn College. Jeff is also trained in physical theater. He has been co-running a theater collective called Piehole for almost 15 years. He plays drums in a band called Lame Drivers. Prior to joining Beam, Jeff worked in other youth serving arts and technology programs in New York City.
When asked what he thinks is special about Beam, Jeff says, “Beam Center is about creating spaces, creating situations where people can experience joy. Which you wouldn't think would even be necessary but it's something that gets squeezed out of spaces of learning. Learning should be joyful. Beam always makes that space and we don't just make that space but we are intentional about creating the situation where joy can happen.”
We’re so grateful to Jeff for his experience and support of Beam over the years. Thank you for being a part of the Beam team!
