Co-leading, with Tracey Brown Edwards, a “Celebrating Courage” inter-generational workshop with The Lilies Project, ArtPlace America, 2018
Marie Garlock (she/they) is an arts cultivator, researcher, and educator for health, justice, and community-building initiatives, with a PhD in Communication (UNC at Chapel Hill, 2019).
Marie works in culture-making for health equity, arts organizing, and community-engaged institutional partnerships in healthcare and educational settings. Dr. Garlock’s chief motivation is to creatively engage diverse collaborators in courageous communication and skills-building for social change.
For nearly 20 years, Marie’s research, teaching, and partnerships have focused on community-led movements for healthcare, environmental, and racial justice. Dr. Garlock has a background in multi-disciplinary arts leadership in dance, theater, and participatory public rituals that center the power of our living stories to shape a more just and healthy world.
Marie has led embodied ethics and equity programs with Area Health Education Centers, ArtPlace America, the US Commission on Civil Rights, Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars, and community-engaged, arts-based organizing and research initiatives in East Africa and the rural U.S. south.
By the Numbers
In 8 countries and 25 U.S. states, it’s been an honor to reach more than 10,000 audience members to date with the content I lead—with upwards of 2,000 participants in medical education, 4,000 in workplaces and community settings, and 4,000 in classrooms and educational settings.
Drawn to meaningful adventures and wherever I can be of most service, I’ve designed and documented 8 institutional partnerships for community-engaged research and led 100-plus workshops for client partners in clinical care and education, and for foundations, grant programs, and workplaces.
It’s a thrill to have been commissioned for more than 20 residencies as an artist-scholar, and over the past decade, I have created and taught 15 university courses for groups sized 15-250—in Departments of Communication and African, African American, and Diaspora Studies, including Study Abroad and Service Learning contexts.
By the Venue
I make content and consult for professional development and continuing medical education programs, for federal and regional testimonies to regulatory agencies, for film, radio, and TV media, and for community-engaged research initiatives.
The collaborative research I conduct has been published in the federal docket, academic journals, and public forums. It has contributed to testimonies for the US Commission on Civil Rights, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and state Departments of Environmental Quality (DEQ).
Consultation based on collaborative research I conduct has contributed to documentaries and media shorts aired on CNN with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Al-Jazeera America’s Faultlines, the EPIX series America Divided, and more.
Programs I co-design and implement with fellow facilitators and partner organizations in the rural and urban U.S. South, Malawi, Kenya, and Tanzania have focused on anti-oppression education, story- and dialogue-based communication for policy and cultural change, and people-driven, arts-based curricula and outreach.
Overall…
I was born to gather people! I love guiding audiences in effective, interactive learning practices, and in opportunities to honor one others’ contributions, to re-imagine and activate our capacities for positive change.
My work is constantly inspired by mentors and collaborators, from cultural and dance arts luminary Dr. Baba Chuck Davis to colleagues at Theater Delta, from community leaders for environmental justice in Stokes County, NC, to rural organizers for human rights and capabilities in Tanzania and Malawi.
Because I’m trained in oral history and the possibilities of arts-driven communication for community development, I place listening and multi-disciplinary collaboration at the center for way-making and solution-building. My approach advances the priorities and power of people facing life-threatening illness, injury, and inequity to inform both process and outcome.