Marilyn Arsem

PERFORMANCES

Marilyn Arsem has created more than 200 live events since 1975, ranging from solo performances to large scale, site-specific works incorporating installation and performance.  Based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, Arsem has presented work in 30 countries, at festivals, alternative spaces, galleries, museums, universities and conferences in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Oceania and Asia.

Some recent highlights include the durational performance Voices in 2024, as part of Future Ritual’s Ceremony [i], in Peckham, London, UK. Bodies in the Land, a 59-hour/six-day performance was performed in 2022 at The Momentary, in Bentonville, Arkansas, USA.  In 2019 she presented Water Moving, a twelve-day performance at Arti et Amicitiae, in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, as part of the exhibition ‘Maalstroom.’  In 2019 she also performed at the 14th Bienal de Curitiba, Brazil. And in 2018 she participated in the Performance Train of Transart Communication 30 International Performance Art Project, traveling by train from Budapest to perform in Prague, Czech Republic and Krakow, Poland.  She also performed as part of Arctic Action Live Performance Art Festival Spitzbergen 2016.  In early 2016 she completed 100 Ways to Consider Time, 100 different six-hour performances in 100 consecutive days, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

TEACHING

Arsem established one of the most extensive programs internationally in visually based performance art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (SMFA), where she taught for 27 years.  Arsem’s courses focused on such topics as site-specific work, durational performance, personae in performance, documenting the ephemeral, Fluxus and Dada, performance in conceptual art, street performances and interventions, scores and systems, collaborative work, and more.  Since leaving SMFA in 2014, she has increased her teaching of performance workshops internationally.

EDUCATION AND AFFILIATION

Arsem received her BFA from Boston University in 1973.  She went on to establish Mobius Artists Group, an interdisciplinary collaborative of artists which she founded in 1975, and incorporated in 1980 as Mobius, Inc., a non-profit, tax-exempt, artist-run organization.  Mobius’s mission is to generate, shape and test experimental art. Mobius has presented work involving thousands of artists over its 40+ year history and is recognized as one of the seminal alternative, artist-run organizations in the U.S.A.  Their website is http://www.mobius.org

PUBLICATION

A book on her work, Responding to Site: the performance work of Marilyn Arsem, edited by Jennie Klein and Natalie Loveless, was published in 2020 by Intellect Books of the UK, and can be purchased online or through your local bookstore.

Featured News:

Live performance – ‘Reconstitution’ on Saturday, March 21st, 2026, from 5:30 pm to 8:30 pm, at Boston City Hall, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, as part of ‘Recalibrate,’ an evening of performance art and participatory projects by Mobius Artists Group.

Mobius Artists Group welcomes you to an evening of performance art and participatory projects involving movement, play, language, light, and music, all responding to this place and time in American … [Read more...] about Live performance – ‘Reconstitution’ on Saturday, March 21st, 2026, from 5:30 pm to 8:30 pm, at Boston City Hall, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, as part of ‘Recalibrate,’ an evening of performance art and participatory projects by Mobius Artists Group.

Workshop – FIELD WORK, an intensive residential workshop in the Eden Valley, Cumbria, UK, co-led with Anne Bean July 28, 2026 through August 3, 2026, produced by Future Ritual.

The Field Work residential workshop explores collaboration in and with landscape. Spending a week immersed in the beautiful and evocative Eden Valley, we will consider the role of site in performance … [Read more...] about Workshop – FIELD WORK, an intensive residential workshop in the Eden Valley, Cumbria, UK, co-led with Anne Bean July 28, 2026 through August 3, 2026, produced by Future Ritual.

Online workshop – Being in Place, Tuesdays, 6-8 PM Central European Time (CET), November 18, 2025 through December 16, 2025, through ECC-Performance Art.

This course (taught in English) is focused on creating public actions in your local surroundings. We will consider our immediate neighborhoods as a place to re-embody our art making in ways that are … [Read more...] about Online workshop – Being in Place, Tuesdays, 6-8 PM Central European Time (CET), November 18, 2025 through December 16, 2025, through ECC-Performance Art.

Fellow – Lunder Institute of American Art’s ‘2025 Summer Think Tank,’ from Monday, July 28th to Friday, August 1st, 2025 at Colby College, Waterville, ME, USA.

Arsem will participate in Colby College's Lunder Institute of American Art's Summer Think Tank 2025: Centering Performance in American Art, taking place in Waterville, Maine, from July 28th to August … [Read more...] about Fellow – Lunder Institute of American Art’s ‘2025 Summer Think Tank,’ from Monday, July 28th to Friday, August 1st, 2025 at Colby College, Waterville, ME, USA.

Live performance – ‘Reconstitution,’ on June 20th, 2025, from noon to 5 pm, in ‘Cindy Baker’s Big Thing: 50th birthday Performance Art Celebration,’ at Latitude 53, 10130 – 100th Street, amiskwacîwâskahikan, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Other artists in the program include Migueltzinta Solis, Mitchell Chalifoux, Roses (Roseanna Joy Nay), Michelle Lacombe, and Harley Morman.Beginning at 7 pm, evening programming will take place at … [Read more...] about Live performance – ‘Reconstitution,’ on June 20th, 2025, from noon to 5 pm, in ‘Cindy Baker’s Big Thing: 50th birthday Performance Art Celebration,’ at Latitude 53, 10130 – 100th Street, amiskwacîwâskahikan, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.