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 Education

HEALING ROOM

Inspired by the Mercedes Healing Room, we created the Healing Room SEPARATE from the MERCEDES project for more community members to have access to therapeutic art workshops!

We want to spread awareness of how one can heal through different forms of art, be it through writing poems or painting portraits and flowers, and create enriching experiences in community through art.

These therapeutic art workshops provide cognitive stimulation, encourage socialization, help reduce stress and anxiety, as well as enrich relationships, and promote self-expression. 

Video showed at The Goethe-Institut exhibition- Unlocking Sacred Spaces in Los Angeles, California on September 2023.

 
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All The Healing Rooms

  • 2022-Along with The Bushwick Starr, from May 4th until June 22nd, we held therapeutic art workshops at the Cypress Hills Senior Center led by art therapist Sarah Serrano-Esquilin, and teaching artist Angelica Aranda. ALL THE PARTICIPANTS created a zine with all of their art! (see here)

  • On April 2023 we launched a collaboration between ArtBridge’s Bridging the Divide program and our Healing Room program!
    For three months, starting April 21st, 2023, and ending on June 30th, 2023, we were at NYCHA Bushwick Houses, holding this space to heal through drawing, painting, and designing murals with lead instructor Giannina Gutierrez.

    Guest Artists included Fernando “Ski” Romero, Sasha Beliakova, Crystal Clarity, Sarah Serrano, and Amanda Everich. In August 2023 we will be showing murals done by Dana Robinson, Fernando Ski Romero, and Sasha Beliakova that have been painted on the scaffolding at Bushwick Houses.

    Thank you to Jennifer Gutierrez, 34th District City Council representative, and NYC Department of Cultural Affairs representative, for funding this program!

  • For the second year in a row, we are holding a Healing Room at the Cypress Senior Center with last year’s lead teaching artist Angelica Aranda and art therapist Sarah Serrano three times a week throughout the month of June starting May 30th!

  • Led by Gia Gutierrez and Cristina Maldonado, from June 7th-June 28th, the seniors at the Diana Jones Senior Center expressed themselves creatively in all ways, including dance for the first time in the Healing Room, when the Mercedes Music Tour visited.

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Healing Room Tour

Citymeals, Musical Theatre Factory, Dementia Spring partnered to create Healing Room Tours, for the project “Mercedes” a multimedia art and community service project. We are hosting celebrations at older adult centers in all five boroughs, plus special meal deliveries. In each senior center we host art and dance workshops along with music performed live by Pedro Fortunato and share the Mercedes Documentary. We deliver meals, and Pedro Fortunato delivers personal serenades to homebound older adults in the neighborhood. All the participants receive a care package at the end of the day with resources they may need and supplies to continue art-making in their free time!

  • Starting March, we went to Melrose Older Adult Center in the Bronx with teaching artist Cristina Maldonado, dance instructor from the Brooklyn Ballet, Valentina Fory, and Mount Sinai specialists, Mari Umpierre and Shehan Chin.

  • In 2024, we went to all five boroughs with musician Pedro Fortunato and dance instructor Edwin Figueroa to: CASC Older Adult Center, ARC Fort Washington Senior Center, Florence E. Smith Senior Center, and R.a.i.n. Middletown Senior Center.

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