burnham enjoys “crafting experiences for joy and learning, exploring gender, relation, and liberation.” Following her work at Hamilton as an educational technologist, burnham now helps faculty and students as a digital media specialist for the Digital Design Studio in the Tisch Library at Tufts University, where she just completed her master’s in museum education. A self-described eclectic artist and out-of-classroom educator, burnham has sought to “position museums, galleries, and libraries as sites for wellbeing and an exploration of the benefits of art and object interpretation for mental health and self-discovery.”
“Museum educators often practice visual thinking strategies, which focus on amplifying the visitor’s voice and allowing them to construct knowledge while having their reality valued and affirmed,” she says. “That can be a really beneficial thing to experience if you are a survivor of traumatic events or deal with depression.”
burnham moved to Boston with the intention of making community art. She and a friend co-founded the Queer Theatre Project in 2021, an all-volunteer, recreational community theatre company for and by the LGBTQIA+ community who enjoy the art of performance. The group recently choreographed a genderless version of Twelfth Night. They perform in parks and other venues in and around Boston.
“It has brought together many parts of the queer communities,” burnham says. “It’s really nice that it has been a space where we have people of all genders and sexualities.”
In between it all, burnham still has spare time to help run the housing co-op she lives in, make books and puzzles with her recently purchased book press, and pursue becoming an accredited financial counselor to help those with less financial means.
“I’m very passionate about mental health,” she says. “I think that is visible in a lot of my work and in the collection of things I’ve been doing lately, and that it will be visible in whatever might be next.”
