Introducing reDirect’s 2025 Artist in Residence

I am delighted to be the reDirect Artist-in-Residence for 2025!

I have long been interested in both art and people. My earliest memories are of “making things” — playing with pipe cleaners, cardboard, glue, and whatever else I could get my hands on. As the years have passed the materials have changed, but the common root of what drives my art is a love of exploration and discovery. How do these materials work? What can I do with them? What can I learn?

My interest in people — particularly in human psychology and behavior — blooms from this same root of curiosity. How do people function? How can we influence them for the better? What experiments can we do to learn more? These interests eventually led to a degree in cognitive science from Stanford and a PhD in environmental psychology from the University of Michigan where I had the great fortune to meet many of the people currently on the reDirect board.

My environmental psychology career has taken me from academia to consulting to working with NASA where, as my daughter once explained to a friend, I “helped design spaceships so that people don’t go crazy.” Art was often relegated to the backseat during those years but it was always along for the ride.

When I embarked on my adventure as a full-time artist about seven years ago, I assumed that the choice to embrace art was a de facto choice to leave the world of psychology behind. But as I developed my art practice and artistic voice, I realized that my background in cognitive science and environmental psychology was the primary driver of my artwork — not only pointing me towards particular ideas and themes to explore but also helping me see how to keep working at my best. Like many epiphanies, this one seemed obvious in hindsight.

My years studying human cognition and psychology have shaped the way I look at the world. And as I create and struggle as an artist, I have become increasingly aware of the focus and insights that this particular lens brings to the creative process. When I started a blog that explores these connections and insights, it felt like coming full circle.

As a reDirect Artist-in-Residence, part of what I will be doing is continuing my written explorations of art, life, and environmental psychology as a way to help bring reDirect’s SEE Framework to life. This writing will take the form of blog posts — personal essays flavored with science — that I hope will resonate with readers not only because we are all creative (and we are) but because we are all human.

I welcome the structure that this Artist-in-Residence will bring and I look forward to the opportunity to dive deeper into the ideas embedded in SEE!

            - Anne

Anne Kearney is an artist and writer who currently lives in the vibrant city of Barcelona. Anne’s artwork is inspired by her decades of experience as an environmental psychologist working for universities, non-profits and NASA. She is energized by the struggle of finding ways to communicate the essence of abstract ideas through simple art materials. Her writing explores what cognitive science and psychology have to tell us about creativity, making art, and functioning at our best in this complex world. Anne has a BA in Psychology/Cognitive Science from Stanford University, a PhD in Environmental Psychology from the University of Michigan, and has studied art throughout her life.