Mary Oestereicher Hamill is a pioneer of participatory art regarding social issues. In a multi-year project begun in the 90’s, she loaned video cameras to homeless people and transformed the imagery and sound into collaborative interactive installations at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Sanders Theatre, Harvard; and the Massachusetts State House. Her seminal “Constructs of Frailty” (Rose Art Museum) led to a medical mission in remote rural Vietnam; and this resulted in a collaborative exhibition in the village center and an installation at Stanford University. Her expedition to ancient Beijing neighborhoods engendered street photography by the residents and a festive art display there; this phase was followed by projecting the China images outdoors in Chinatown, New York, and then exhibiting the entirety at the Danforth Museum. Hamill collaborated with Native Americans in New Mexico for the Abiquiu Music Festival. She also developed an installation based on her service as a Public Affairs Officer on the hospital ship USNS Mercy in the South China Sea. Currently she and Chath pierSath, a survivor of the Khmer Rouge killings, direct the Cambodia War Widows Project. Her artwork has been exhibited in Canada, England, France, India, Spain, Uruguay and other countries.

Hamill’s consistent focus on the needs of poor and marginalized people proceeds from a career in educational reform, work that led to four national awards and to a set of U.S. legislation (PL94-142). She served as Senior Research Scientist in the New York Mental Health system, tenured Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies at Brooklyn College, and Associate Professor of Psychology and Dean Undergraduate Studies at Babson College, where she led an acclaimed curriculum reinvention. Hamill has a Diploma from the Museum School and the Traveling Scholar Award, and has had numerous fellowships including Djerassi Resident Artist Program and Virginia Center for Creative Arts. She earned the Ph.D., Columbia University; M.Phil., University of Sussex, England; and A.B., University of Michigan. For two decades she was Artist/Scholar at Brandeis University Women's Studies Research Center; and in 2014 the national Women's Caucus for Art appointed her representative to the United Nations. Most recently she directed the Bernstein Gallery for Princeton University's School of Public and International Affairs, and at the start of the pandemic she helped mount the online project Art Against Racism. The mother of two adult sons, she is based in Princeton.