Marie Applegate is a Bay Area artist, curator, producer and founder of Creative Compassion Initiative and the Village Artist-in-Residency program. She advocates for:
* leveraging creativity in public spaces as a means of spreading compassion
* paying artists a thriveable - not just survivable - compensation
* doing everything in her power to keep creatives in they Bay Area
Her playful large scale interactive art installations, inspired by Stanford's Center for Compassion Altruism Research and Education's (CCARE) + affiliates, promotes prosocial behaviors through creative compassion in public spaces. The majority of her work has been at the epicenter of transitioning neighborhoods in San Francisco. At the juncture of the old and new lays much tension that could be relieved; Marie believes that civic engagement through playful interactive public art can have a subtle yet powerful impact, disarming tensions while presenting opportunity for the disconnected to (re)connect.
Through public art experiences, Marie continues to witness bystanders transform into everyday heroes, as they empower themselves and others to fully connect.
