art + soul installations

THE GARDEN OF SOLACE: interactive outdoor Grief Garden and weekly community grief ritual, September 11-November 1, 2020, Northampton, MA.  Taking place at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, participants were invited to light and leave candles in memory, tuck a personal prayer into a prayer wall or scratch out a prayer in response to injustice, listen to the healing sound of running water, and, as they left, take a note of peace with them as they exited the garden. A socially-distanced weekly community grief ritual of spoken words, live music and silence was held in the garden.

BE-LONGING: an interactive pop up exploring Loneliness and Connection, November 26-December 3, 2018, Nolan Lounge, Smith College Campus Center, in collaboration with the Office of Student Engagement, the Wellness Center and the Center for Religious and Spiritual Life 

​FLIGHT
March 20-27, 2016  First Churches, Northampton, MA
April, 2017 in partnership with Springfield College Art Therapy Department, Springfield, MA

With vintage pieces of luggage as the foundation of each piece, area artists created a station from pieces of luggage that told a part of the refugee experience. Refugee youth from Bhutan and refugee women from East Africa each created a station. Before creating their work, other artists engaged with refugee communities to ask questions and better understand the depth and breadth of the refugee experience.

This installation was curated as a contemplative, silent meditation, taking the viewer through a spectrum of experiences of exile, dislocation, liminality, trauma, memory and hope. Viewers concluded this walk in a center circle of shelter where they were invited to sit in reflection and scatter ashes. As they left, volunteers gently washed viewers hands and offered words of blessing.