Art and creation can be a catalyst for mental wellness. Art with intention is an innovative way to provide a safe space to promote open dialogue about mental health in a culturally informed manner. Therefore, facilitating art that is guided by cultural experience, we can approach art as an inner demand and make it a conscious way to express wellness, care, and vulnerability.
For this art exhibition, contemporary artists of diverse backgrounds will respond to societal pressures, investigate the exquisiteness of the universe, and how it relates to the miracle of the human condition.
The selected artists are asked to create works based on their own familial experiences, family history, immigrant stories, racial discrimination, internalized racial trauma, mental health issues, parenting conflicts, and cultural identity. Disciplines will include a wide range of visual and performing art. Artists will discuss their content and reflect on community issues generated during the pandemic. These works will support the CHATogther stimulating the conversation for the workshop and seminar.
CHATogether is a program that aims to facilitate child-parent communication, break stigma, and develop effective coping skills in a culturally sensitive manner.
The event is presented and moderated by Dr. Eunice Yuen, MD, PH.D., founder and Director of CHATogether, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine and Yale Child Study Center.
Artists and students will be recruited to construct story-telling skits to showcase children-parent conflict scenarios and construct role-playing dialogues. Topics will include cross-cultural challenges, emotional management, and stigma associated with certain mental concerns that are commonly shared among Asian American child-parent dyads.
Videos, graphic novels, and live presentations will be made that include young people who experience racial discrimination, internalized racial trauma, and how parents may be helpful to process their vulnerabilities. Each presentation will be facilitated by a child psychiatrist. Participants are artists, teens, parents, curators, and mental health professionals.