Event Date: 04.09.2021
Time: 10am-12pm
Part of Mass Cultural Council’s Recover, Rebuild, Renew Series
By focusing both on individual and community-level healing, we will explore how the arts can address root causes associated with trauma and begin to change the narrative. Dr. Tasha Golden’s important research in Creating Healthy Communities, her work as a musician, and her direct work with young people in Project Uncaged, will inform a rich dialogue on how the arts can address trauma through community and policy change. Renée Watson’s award-winning novels such as Piecing Me Together, This Side of Home, A Place Where Hurricane’s Happen, and her most recent book Love is a Revolution address the complexity of traumas in many ways, including how focusing on self-care and joy are important ingredients of healing.
Join us for a dialogue with these two prominent creatives as we discover ways to address trauma and well-being through storytelling and social advocacy work.
Presenters
Dr. Tasha Golden, Ph.D., artist, senior Arts in Health Research Scientist, International Arts + Mind Lab, Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Renée Watson, New York Times bestselling author, educator, and community activist.
Bios
Dr. Tasha Golden is Director of Research and Senior Arts in Health Research Scientist at the International Arts + Mind Lab in the Brain Science Institute at Johns Hopkins University. As a public health researcher and innovator, Dr. Golden studies impacts of arts, culture, environments, and rhetorics on health, health equity, research, and clinical practice. Her visionary work is bolstered by her career as an artist and entrepreneur. She is a published poet, and toured full time for ten years as singer/songwriter for the critically acclaimed band Ellery. She is also the founder of Project Uncaged: a trauma-informed, arts-based health intervention designed to support the well-being of incarcerated girls while elevating their voices in community and political discourses. Dr. Golden serves as an advisor on several national arts and health initiatives, and as Adjunct Faculty at the University of Florida’s Center for Arts in Medicine.
Renée Watson, is a New York Times bestselling author, educator, and activist. Her young adult novel, Piecing Me Together (Bloomsbury, 2017) received a Coretta Scott King Award and Newbery Honor. Her poetry and fiction often center around the experiences of black girls and women, and explore themes of home, identity, and the intersections of race, class, and gender. Using storytelling and artmaking, Renée works with youth who are healing from trauma, specifically racial injustice, sexual assault, grief, and natural disasters, Renée served as Founder and Executive Director of I, Too, Arts Collective, a nonprofit committed to nurturing underrepresented voices in the creative arts, from 2016-2019. Renée splits her time between Portland, Oregon, and New York City.
More Information and Related Resources
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