Dena Hawes's Page

What motivated you to become involved in peace and conflict resolution?

Well, there's a plantary explanation for all of this.

Please feel free to provide a short bio about yourself (no more than 3 paragraphs)

Dena Hawes brings an interdisciplinary, innovative approach to her research and practice in the areas of the arts and conflict resolution. She has an MFA from University of California Santa Barbara with a focus on performance and multiple-media art and theory, and a Ph.D from the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution in 2007.

She has taught undergraduate and graduate students at the university level for four years in conflict resolution, visual and performance art, contemporary art issues, and intensive writing. Her integrative approach to teaching has been supported by the departments where she has taught experimental methods of art making that were informed and influenced by ideas and theory in philosophy, social science, anthropology and art.

She has researched and worked abroad in areas of civil society and international development. Her work in conflict resolution and art strives towards improved understanding of different ethnicities, cultures and worldviews. Her dissertation explores and explains how performance art could be used for intervention purposes in the field of Conflict Resolution in ways that could help resolve and transform conflict at the individual level. It is her desire to teach at a university that will support her research integrating social science theory and practice that looks to art as a vehicle towards perceptual, attitudinal and relational changes, focusing on the artist’s role in building positive community relationships, and with the intent of developing interdisciplinary conflict resolution practices that creatively utilize a variety of disciplines and emphasize the arts.

Please list the countries and/or regions in which you have direct and significant expertise

Republic of Georgia and Azerbaijan

What is your current country of residence?

U.S.A.

What is your current job (and organization) and/or where and what field are you studying?

Project Coordinator at George Mason University

What is one of your favorite websites in the field? (please provide one answer per box)

http://www.h-net.org/

What is one of your favorite websites in the field? (please provide one answer per box)

http://www.communityarts.net/conferences/index.php

Which are your primary sectoral areas of expertise?

Peacebuilding, Conflict Resolution, Development, Youth, Education, Civil Society

Which are your primary skills areas?

Training, Evaluation, Program Design, Fundraising, Program Administration

What are some of your current areas of research (if any)?

Peacebuilding and the Arts and Community Development

If appropriate feel free to list several of your publications

Suzanne Lacy: Oakland Projects in: Artistic Bedfellows: Histories and Conversations in Collaborative Art Practice, University Press of America, Rowman & Littlefield publishing group, Lanham, Maryland, 2007.

Public Art, Urban Sustainability and Peacebuilding, PeaceTimes Journal, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, 2002.

The Role of Socially Engaged Artistic Practice, PeaceTimes Journal, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, 2001.

Artists of Color Deconstructing Racism, PeaceTimes Journal, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, 2001.

War Stories: Artist’s Profile/review. Asianweek Magazine, San Francisco, 1995.

Coastal Project, P-Form Performance Art Magazine, Chicago, Il., September 26, 1993.

Chinese American Artists Find Commonality in ’Ancestral Spirits’. Asianweek Magazine, San Francisco, CA. 1993.