Lisa Gorelik

Hello! My name is Lisa Gorelik (they/them) and I’m a Boston-based designer, community organizer, and artist.

Exploring dynamic ideas of community, queerness, ancestry, and form, I create through many mediums: digital illustration, graphic design, ceramics, music, and placemaking. 

My placemaking style focuses on co-creative experiences that engage community members in setting and craft. To reclaim what spaces queer, BIPOC, and marginalized people can connect with, I intentionally leverage nature in public space. Past events have invited participants into community gardens, public parks, and nature reserves. Once rooted in nature, the activity takes inspiration from the setting, often centering craft and prioritizing creative, explorative activities like skill-sharing workshops, photoshoots, painting, planting, and more. Community organizing has given me the opportunity to reimagine the boundaries of public space and programming, with an intentional focus on where art & nature intersect. To read more about my experience, see my community practice page.

My personal creative practice allows me to explore the roomy corners of my queer identity and family history. Traversing Soviet-Jewish folklore, trans-masculine presentation, chronic illness, first-generation identity, and many other dynamic ideas of self, I love experimenting with different mediums. To see my work, scroll through my portfolio.

Creating promotional materials for community events and social media, I nourished my love for graphic design and digital illustration. Teaching myself Adobe Illustrator, Procreate, InDesign, and Canva, I expanded those skills for my job at Harvard Law School’s Petrie-Flom Center, where I design & distribute promotional materials for events, research, & center initiatives across 5 social media platforms and manage 3 WordPress websites across Harvard.

My formal background is in the life sciences, reproductive health, queer theory, and health equity. I have two bachelor’s degrees, Biology & Women’s Gender and Sexuality studies, and experience in clinical research and academic administration. To read more about my education and experience, click the button below.