Founded by Melissa Unger in 2011 as a collaborative, multidisciplinary, project-based initiative, our mission has perpetually evolved in tandem with tech proliferation & shifting societal needs. Our projects have been ballasts providing a counterbalance, a haven, a beat to pause and process as the world changed so rapidly around us.
We intuited the shift that AI would engender, so we rooted in the offline, the human, the tactile, the elemental. Presence over performance. We were hands on and heart led. Now in an AI saturated world, that inception point has become our legacy.
Though we’ve created a wide variety of public offerings over the years, our main focus has always been on providing innovative tech-free projects that inspire reflection, encourage personal transformation and empower individuals to nurture meaningful connection to themselves and others.
During our early years, Seymour Projects was an ‘underground’ project led by Melissa and lifted by a passionate group of people who tirelessly donated their time and talent to daily operations, evolution and growth. It was a wonderful period of open exploration. Our tag line was: Built by philosophers, pilgrims & punks – Champion of outcasts, marginal thinkers & iconoclasts.
Back then, Seymour Projects communicated principally via a weekly magazine and a series of ephemeral ‘pop up’ projects in Paris and New York. Hard to categorize, our early works were referred to as social activism, creative intervention, community movement, health & well-being initiatives. We were called philosophical, psychological, counter-culture, conscious; but we weren’t concerned with labels, our intent was simply to experiment, teach, learn and be of service.
In 2014, alarmed by the detrimental effects portable electronic devices were having on the mental health of individuals & communities, Melissa conceived SEYMOUR+ | A Spa For The Mind – a revolutionary tech-free space for personal reflection, spiritual/emotional healing & creative expression. This haven, where people could disconnect from technology to reconnect with themselves – was funded thanks to a six-figure grant from a private philanthropist. It garnered international recognition for its impact & innovation.
From 2014-2017 Seymour Projects operated at 41 Boulevard de Magenta near the Canal St Martin in Paris. This building played host to our offices, our community talks and workshops, and of course to our SEYMOUR+ space. In late 2017, at the end of the 3 year lease, Melissa trusted her intuition and decided to transcend that structure in order to evolve Seymour Projects once again.
At the start of 2022, now entering its second decade, Seymour Projects is based in Brooklyn, New York where Melissa collaborates on a project-by-project basis with a free-flowing community of designers, psychologists, academics, architects, artists, & other wonderful people of all disciplines. While we don’t produce as actively as we used to, we continue to influence behind the scenes, contributing through peer to peer interactions that offer guidance and perspective to those shaping the next chapter of this path.
We dare to envision a future in which all human beings are aligned with their authentic selves, consciously creating their life experience and living harmoniously within a unified global community.
+ For those with a retro-curiosity, you can read Melissa Unger’s original Inception Statement here