For five decades, Bee (Beverly) Naidus’ socially engaged art has addressed ecocide and the climate emergency, the corporeal and psychological damage caused by systems of oppression, ways to celebrate the present moment in the middle of dire circumstances, and strategies for imagining and creating the next world. She creates interactive, site-specific installations, digitally rendered artist’s books, and community-based art projects. She studied at Carleton College and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and worked with some extraordinary mentors such as Joanna Macy, Laurie Anderson, Thich Nhat Hahn, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Augusto Boal, and adrienne maree brown. She has taught at Goddard College, Carleton College, CSU Long Beach, Hampshire College, and elsewhere. For almost a decade, she co-facilitated “Activist Art in Community” with her late partner, Dr. Bob Spivey, at the Institute for Social Ecology and launched two eco-community art projects with Bob’s collaboration, Eden Reframed on Vashon Island and the Tacoma Story Hive. Her work has been exhibited internationally in museums, alternative spaces and on the streets. She has led workshops and offered lecture/discussions at schools, community centers, institutes, and libraries all over the US, as well as Canada, Scotland, Ireland, England, Spain, Germany, China, Cuba, and Mexico. Many books and journals contain discussions of her work. As an Emerita Professor of Interdisciplinary Studio Art at the University of Washington – Tacoma, she created and taught an interdisciplinary studio arts curriculum focused on art for social change. Inspired by her work with students, she wrote Arts for Change: Teaching Outside the Frame (New Village Press). In 2025, she spent several months at the Santa Fe Art Institute as a writer/artist in residence and led workshops (Art as Medicine for Catastrophic and Transformative Times) for Seattle Public Library. She is currently mentoring folks as an independent while finishing her memoir that includes creative emergent strategies for this time in the world.
