Ben Kinsley is a multidisciplinary artist who creates site-specific responses to particular situations, often though collaboration and playful exchange with local residents. His projects have ranged from conducting an orchestra of screaming humans, to directing a maritime-themed play for boaters on a lake in Maine, to organizing a shadow play in the middle of the California High Desert, to choreographing a neighborhood intervention into Google Street View. 

Ben’s work has been exhibited internationally in museums, galleries, and film festivals and is included in the permanent collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Ben received his BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art and his MFA from Carnegie Mellon University. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2006, spent the 2008-2009 academic year in Iceland participating in various artist residencies around the country, and most recently was an artist-in-residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, NE. For more information visit: www.benkinsley.com.

"When you sing with a group of people, you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness because a capella singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That's one of the great feelings — to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great social virtue."

-Brian Eno from "Singing: The Key To A Long Life"

I take inspiration from music. It is neither the rhythms nor melodies that interest me, but instead, the social act of making live music that I find so compelling. It is the ultimate form of collaboration, and, as Brian Eno points out, fundamentally about “the immersion of the self into the community.” While much of my work departs from the musical form, I am always trying to find ways to inspire participation and allow room for such collective play to occur. Assuming the role of director, I establish frameworks in response to surroundings (ranging from plays, parades, music video shoots, and puppet shows) and invite others to take active, creative roles in the final work.