In the summer of 2016, The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center hosted a special thematic residency bringing together an international group of residents whose works connects to the cross-cutting topic of human behavior. Over the course of the month-long residency, residents advanced their own projects and spent time sharing their work and feedback with one another. The group engaged through informal dialogue as well as in a set of discussions facilitated by ideas42, a nonprofit that uses insights from the behavioral sciences to address social problems.

The Bellagio Center Residency Program purposefully brings together a diversity of thought and practice, and former Bellagio residents often share that feedback from their fellow residents led them to take their work in a different direction. The common thread of human behavior woven throughout the residency projects brought this element of constructive disruption to a heightened level. Practitioners took insights from the behavioral sciences to change what they were doing on the ground; artists started thinking about how to apply academic methodologies to measure the impact of their work; and academics reflected on how the arts can help expand our understanding of behavior beyond the cognitive elements to also incorporate the emotions that factor into decision-making.

Selected residents of this thematic residency included Juan-Camilo Cárdenas, Paul J. Ferraro, Vibha Galhotra, Christopher J. Graves, Ma. Regina Hechanova Alampay, Tahir Hemphill, Eric J. Johnson, Vishwajeet Kumar, Carrie R. Leana, Godfrey “Gado” Mwampembwa, Ruby Rumié, Kim Thuy Seelinger, and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe.