“My offerings are not products.
They are a frequency.
My practice is not a brand.
It is a presence.”
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Melissa Unger is a Franco-American multidisciplinary artist, author, creative director, and the founder of Seymour Projects.
A long-time champion of creative expression and intentional design as pathways to healing and connection, her practice encourages Divine Play and revitalizes Sacred Space within the home, shared environments and public places.
Melissa’s work, shaped by her own journey of awakening, exploration and transformation, reflects a career of tireless advocacy for the arts, mental health, and spiritual growth.
Melissa and her projects have been featured in academic studies, scholarly publications, many Best of guides, podcasts and international press including: Huffington Post, Die Zeit, ELLE Magazine, Le Figaro, Libération, Le Monde, El Pais, and New York Magazine.
She has made contributions to the fields of consciousness, spirituality, and wellness.
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Spirituality, Archetypes, Inner Worlds
Melissa considers herself an Intuitive Artist, her work is a spiritual practice and its output is spiritual imagery. It connects to the sacred, the unseen, and the inner self; offering evocation, resonance, invitation.
Her visual art has been exhibited in various venues internationally, as well as featured on a variety of goods, most notably on the cover of the pop/rock band Nada Surf’s record album Never Not Together and companion EP Cycle Through.
Melissa has written extensively in fictional, journalistic, interpretative and biographical form. Her novel GAG, an exploration of identity, perception & relationship was published by Roundfire Books in 2014.
Over the course of her 30+ year career, Melissa has participated in countless creative collaborations.
When working as a creative director, harmony is Melissa’s core ethos. She shapes projects with intentionality, grace and a sensitivity to natural rhythms and forms. When working with clients, Melissa doesn’t impose her aesthetic, she awakens their own.
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Consciousness, Transformation, Well-being
In 2011, Melissa founded Seymour Projects a consciousness incubator. Seymour Projects helps individuals disconnect from technology to reconnect with themselves.
For the past 15 years, she has spearheaded the conception, design and production of the collective’s tech-free, creatively therapeutic spaces, objects & experiences.
These transformative offerings support introspection, reflection & play; they invite the recall of unfettered childhood states, resulting in pure and meaningful connection to self and others.
Her largest project to date SEYMOUR+ | A Spa For The Mind was located in Paris France 2014-2017. This groundbreaking space was acclaimed internationally and considered a precursor to what has since become a movement.
An evolution of this offering is currently being developed in collaboration with designer Corey Stevens, architect Michael Etzel and Dr. Stephen Porges, PhD who generously lent his clinical perspective. Conception is complete and production will be underway soon.
Via Seymour Projects Melissa also edited Seymour Magazine, produced a series of talks & videos, published limited edition books, co-created many other ‘pop up’ spaces and objects.
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Mentorship, Insight, Advisory
In addition to her work with Seymour Projects and her own creative practice, Melissa has guided private workshops (one on one) & public workshops (groups). At their essence these are frameworks for self-discovery and soulful exploration.
Throughout her career, Melissa has also provided a range of advisory services, continually refining them as the sociocultural landscape shifts. Ever tailoring her approach to the evolving needs of CEOs, CBOs, creatives and social entrepreneurs.
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Evolution, Service, Leadership
Over the course of her 30+ year career, Melissa has worked with many socially-conscious organizations, and held long-term positions at the following cultural institutions: Tribeca Productions, Disney’s Jumbo Pictures, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, artnet, and the Creative Growth Art Center.
Melissa began her professional journey in the late 1980s as a studio assistant to seminal fashion and culture photographer Patrick Demarchelier, this internship was an extension of her formal photography studies and honored the early influence of her uncle, Pierre Houlés.
In the early 1990s, she worked as a production manager on music videos for director Ralph Ziman, and held various crew positions on acclaimed feature films including The Age of Innocence, Quiz Show, and A Bronx Tale. During this decade, she also served for several years as a personal assistant to actors Robert De Niro and Daniel Day-Lewis at the peak of their respective careers. This period provided hands-on training in creative risk-taking, collaboration, and high-level production.
From 1999-2004 Melissa was Vice President of Media Outreach at the Ad Council where she was responsible for managing national partnerships with U.S. media outlets including television, radio, print and outdoor. Her efforts helped expand the reach of innumerable public service campaigns. In recognition of her contributions, Melissa received Ad Council President Peggy Conlon’s Award for Exceptional Performance. Her time working at this legendary organization afforded her a masterclass in how to leverage creativity to inspire action and catalyze change.
From 2004-2006, Melissa was Manager of Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, one of Parisʼ leading contemporary art galleries. She guided the team, upgraded organizational systems and collaborated on exhibitions featuring a wide range of prominent artists. This role cemented her years of experience working in high-profile, high-stakes environments. She emerged as a seasoned team leader adept at managing complex, fast-paced projects involving complex multidimensional demands.
From 2007 to 2011, just prior to her founding of Seymour Projects, Melissa was a freelance production, marketing and communications consultant for cultural organizations and creative brands such as: artnet, Galerie Christian Berst, Vladimir Restoin-Roitfeld, Vingt Paris, the Creative Growth Art Center, and many more. During this wide-ranging chapter she leant her skills to myriad sociocultural projects and gained a glimpse into the practices and processes of some of the world’s leading visionaries and greatest living visual artists.
Melissa was also a founding member of the ephemeral special events collective HELLO, MY NAME IS BILL where she collaborated on the conception and hosting of a series of playful underground happenings in Paris during the early aughts.
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Ecosystems, Collaborations, Communities
Melissa’s involvement in a wide range of initiatives stems from a deep belief in the power of shared inquiry to shape a more soulful world.
She is a proponent of the Intentional Spaces Initiative and International Arts + Mind Lab | Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics at Johns Hopkins University.
A member of the Kinnernet and DLD communities and a supporter of the National Museum of Women in the Arts & New York Peace Institute.
She has enjoyed participating in Tamás Dávid Barrett’s evolutionary behavioral science discussion group Human Beast and poet Jan Noble’s existential conversation club Angeli D’Inferno.
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Education, Scholarship, Research
Born in Manhattan in 1967, Melissa holds a Baccalauréat degree in Philosophy from Lycée Français de New York (1985) and B.A. in English from Tufts University in Massachusetts (1989) which encompassed literary analysis, storytelling, linguistics and communication studies.
During college, she also studied photography at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston under the tutelage of Professor Siegfried Halus, her focus was on Humanist and Existential visual narratives.
In her post-graduate years, Melissa has been a self-directed scholar of metaphysics, theology, sociocultural anthropology, therapeutic practices, visionary experience & many other related subjects.
Melissa’s most recent inquiries have been focused on antidotes to tech addiction, radical empathy, silence as sanctuary, and new offline models for social cohesion.
Her interdisciplinary path and layered transnational identity have informed a deep dive into liminality and the dissolution of structure that occurs within individuals and cultures during threshold states.
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Mysticism, Psychology, Human Potential
Though mysticism & spirituality imbue all aspects of her work and daily life, hers is a neutral way, bound neither to religion or rationality, yet informed by both.
Jungian Principles and Transpersonal Psychology are core tenets of Melissa’s practice, as are the Divine & Wild Feminine.
Her personal journey has followed the Way of the Pearl. In Magdalene mysticism, this is the sacred feminine path of transformation through adversity, culminating in the transmutation of wounding into wisdom.
In mythopoetic terms, Melissa has been on a Heroine’s Journey - a quest to reclaim her True Self through the unification of opposites: spirit & matter, conscious & unconscious, masculine & feminine. In Jungian psychology, this is interpreted as Individuation: the process of integrating all aspects of the psyche into a complete and balanced whole.
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Nature, Subculture, Next Wave
Deeply attuned to the natural world, particularly the Ocean, Melissa feels most at ease when surrounded by organic elements.
Surf, skateboard, and punk culture have been steady influences, informing both her ethos and aesthetic.
Approaching her 60s, she has shifted her energy from forging to refining. This evolution makes room for deeper resonance and spacious explorations into the elemental and the essential.
Melissa is currently based in New York City where she continues to follow her calling with reverence and gratitude. She is ever curious to see where it may lead her.