Stephanie Stewart-Bailey
The Body Appropriate
The mission that initiated the founding of The Body Appropriate space was to create comfort in others to handle actual anatomical specimen and the deceased bodies of people they care about, themselves. Since then, I have expanded the project so that the space now casts a wider net to study different types of bodies by abstract definition. The body can be geological, material, spacial, architectural, musical, structural, your own.
I am an arts and museum professional as well as an artist with a focus in science and the history of medicine. I see myself as an artist-as-curator, and am also an arts-research based field worker, an object preparator, producer of events & demonstrations, and build exhibits. I currently work as Program Manager at Headlands Center for the Arts where I oversee the Affiliate Artist Program and bits of our other programs, as well as implement public programming. My days involve fostering community amongst artists and finding ways to engage the public. I worked for many years at the Exploratorium and continue on with occasional projects there. I spent a few years within the Public Programming department coordinating and producing events for adults, a couple years creating temporary exhibits and exhibitions, as well as spent time fixing exhibits and delicately cracking fertilized chicken eggs so that people could look at embryos and their hearts beating. I hold a Master's in International Museum Studies from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, with a thesis titled, Presenting the Interior Body: The Museum's Role in Perception and Identification. I also received a Bachelors of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute, Chicago with a focus in performance studies and alternative photography.
Occasionally, I perform public dissections for the general public. From birds to whales, humans and other mammals, I've showcased work at places like The Exploratorium, The California Academy of Sciences, in parks, on beaches, the Maker Faire, The Tinkering Studio, Gothenburg's Natural History Museum and Chicago's International Museum of Surgical Science. I was trained in specimen preparation at the California Academy of Sciences. My favorite public dissection was either the sperm whale or the evening of A Sound Public Dissection where Wayne Grim improvised live musical accompaniment and Phoebe Tooke created a live video projection.
I have also worked as a human tissue, cornea (eye) and neural tissue (brain) recovery technician. If someone died in the Bay Area and donated their body, I might have been the one headed into the morgue to surgically remove their corneas or brain. Through this work was trained on postmortem human body care and am colleague to a community of death care workers. I am a member of The Order of the Good Death, a group of funeral industry professionals, academics, and artists.
Please see examples of some my museum work, including programming and exhibitions under the Other Work category.
Feel free to contact me with any questions.
Stephanie Stewart Bailey
thebodyappropriate at gmail dot com
I am an arts and museum professional as well as an artist with a focus in science and the history of medicine. I see myself as an artist-as-curator, and am also an arts-research based field worker, an object preparator, producer of events & demonstrations, and build exhibits. I currently work as Program Manager at Headlands Center for the Arts where I oversee the Affiliate Artist Program and bits of our other programs, as well as implement public programming. My days involve fostering community amongst artists and finding ways to engage the public. I worked for many years at the Exploratorium and continue on with occasional projects there. I spent a few years within the Public Programming department coordinating and producing events for adults, a couple years creating temporary exhibits and exhibitions, as well as spent time fixing exhibits and delicately cracking fertilized chicken eggs so that people could look at embryos and their hearts beating. I hold a Master's in International Museum Studies from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, with a thesis titled, Presenting the Interior Body: The Museum's Role in Perception and Identification. I also received a Bachelors of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute, Chicago with a focus in performance studies and alternative photography.
Occasionally, I perform public dissections for the general public. From birds to whales, humans and other mammals, I've showcased work at places like The Exploratorium, The California Academy of Sciences, in parks, on beaches, the Maker Faire, The Tinkering Studio, Gothenburg's Natural History Museum and Chicago's International Museum of Surgical Science. I was trained in specimen preparation at the California Academy of Sciences. My favorite public dissection was either the sperm whale or the evening of A Sound Public Dissection where Wayne Grim improvised live musical accompaniment and Phoebe Tooke created a live video projection.
I have also worked as a human tissue, cornea (eye) and neural tissue (brain) recovery technician. If someone died in the Bay Area and donated their body, I might have been the one headed into the morgue to surgically remove their corneas or brain. Through this work was trained on postmortem human body care and am colleague to a community of death care workers. I am a member of The Order of the Good Death, a group of funeral industry professionals, academics, and artists.
Please see examples of some my museum work, including programming and exhibitions under the Other Work category.
Feel free to contact me with any questions.
Stephanie Stewart Bailey
thebodyappropriate at gmail dot com
photo: Humpback whale that washed ashore, 2015