public artist and urban planner

R Stein Wexler (she/her) is a public- and installation-artist trained as an urban planner. 

Her projects are research-based, community-engaged, and critical of dominant structures. She creates place-based work in collaboration with local communities to tell (hi)stories. Shaped by empathy, deep listening, and authentic connection, her work results in gatherings, process documentation, immersive and interactive installations, workshops, exhibitions, and policy change. Her work often offers numerous points of entry, be it through sensory experiences, information-sharing, participation in the creation process, or community- and connection-building. The journey to the end of her work is just as important as the final product which often results in social as well as physical infrastructures.

Stein’s art has been supported by Raleigh Arts, the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Berlin Senate for Culture and Social Cohesion, Mitte Museum, Kultur Mitte, CEC ArtsLink, as well as the Duke-Durham Partnership and the Mellon and Z. Smith Reynolds Foundations, among others. Stein was an artist in residence at documenta fifteen in Kassel, Germany and a German Chancellor’s Fellow at Berlin’s Center for Art and Urbanistics (ZK/U). Stein has taught public art at the Hayti Heritage Center and has guest lectured at colleges and universities. 

Stein holds a Master’s in City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill where she received the Parker Fellowship and served as the co-editor in chief of the Carolina Planning Journal. Stein holds a BA with honors in English from University of California, Berkeley.

Want to collaborate? Let’s talk.