Micheal Hooker

Micheal Hooker is an arts-based psychology writer, performance artist, and activist bi-located in Tampa, Florida and Brooklyn, New York.

Grounded in embodiment practices used in art and therapy, Hooker’s work is influenced by relational participation and archaic rituals that shape our language and worldview. In an attempt to reflect these intersections, she primarily uses the voice and body in live performances, film installations, and both literal and figurative mixed-media collages.

Trained in massage and polarity therapy, Hooker has taught at The Florida School of Massage and The Swedish Institute of Manhattan where she developed her own style of integrating contemporary art into somatic therapy lesson plans. These experiences along with her practice of Jungian dreamwork inform her arts-based psychology research and advocacy for embodiment as a non-violent form of resistance and intrapersonal liberation.

Hooker has performed in numerous cities throughout the United States and facilitated workshops in non-violent communication across the east coast. Her essays have been published by Steiner Books, Consequence Magazine and Artborne Magazine. She is the founding director of Lector Social Club, an artist residency and natural-wine hub in Tampa, Florida that welcomes artists from across the country and abroad who are otherwise underrepresented with emerging or established careers and a record of creating original work.  

What drew you to the MA Arts Politics program?

The intersectional format of The Arts Politics program at NYU-Tisch appealed to me as an artist who is actively engaged in seemingly divergent practices found in psychology, bodywork, poetry, and ecology. Exploring such topics in the context of influential power structures that are both political and psycho-social in nature is important to me, and no other graduate curriculum I came across seemed to measure up in meeting those needs.

These factors, as well as the opportunity to engage in progressive discourse with a collective of incredible peers and mentors compelled me to apply to this unique program.