The Twin Cities is home to a diverse arts and healing community – perhaps the largest nationwide, according to Jack Becker, who leads
Forecast Public Art, a nonprofit public art consulting agency based in Saint Paul.
The Twin Cities, Becker adds, is “an arts-rich community, and we’re huge for healthcare and technologies devoted to medicine and bioscience and research into healing. These realms come together in a variety of ways.”
Those intersections are the subject of an exhibit Forecast put together in collaboration with Hennepin County’s Multicultural Arts Committee. Titled "Creative Care: Art + Healing in the Twin Cities," the exhibition is at the
Hennepin County Government Center’s gallery in downtown Minneapolis through Jan. 29.
The exhibition pulls together visuals from nine arts-healing organizations in the area. In addition, an opening celebration today, and related forums and performances, are in the works for the coming weeks.
The exhibiton is “about the idea that art can have healing benefits,” Becker says, a notion that often goes unacknowledged in daily life.
As a part of the kickoff for "Creative Care," which begins at 11 a.m., representatives from the exhibiting organizations will be on hand. Some groups, including
Illusion Theater,
Hopewell Community Choir, and
Wilder Band will also perform at the event while county commissioner Peter McLaughlin will make an appearance and
T. Mychael Rambo will serve as its emcee.
The show represents all different approaches to art and healing, from
Hennepin County Medical Center’s Inspire Arts program to the
Minnesota Landscape Arboretum’s Healing Arts Therapies.
As such, the displays are just as diverse as the participants. People can meander through a labyrinth on the floor -- a meditative intentional walk on a path that leads to peaceful calm in the center-- or view snapshots, paintings, installations, and more.
For those who are sick or depressed or are facing other challenges, art can “focus the mind for a period of time on something other than the problem, the ailment, the pain,” Becker says, and art does so in a holistic way. He adds that art can come in the form of a relaxing piece of music or a public memorial in a war-torn community, as just a couple of examples.
Forecast also published a related directory that includes 40 local art-healing programs in order to “raise awareness and increase access to these programs,” he says.
Source: Jack Becker, executive director, Forecast Public Art
Writer: Anna Pratt