We invite you to join us for a Critical Practice Workshop facilitated by the distinguished scholar practitioner, filmmaker, and strategist, Farzin Illich. The workshop aims to explore the potential of salons in fostering creative dialogue toward developing innovative human-centered design to tackle persistent and complex problems. Salons, which gained popularity in pre-revolutionary France, led to the emergence of numerous ideas on social transformation. Gertrude Stein and Natalie Clifford Barney revived salons in early 20th century Paris, and these were attended by distinguished personalities such as Sinclair Lewis, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, Ezra Pound, and Henri Matisse, among others. Notably, Ernest Hemingway’s A Movable Feast and Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris portrayed these salons. A’Lelia Walker’s famous salons of the Harlem Renaissance from 1915-1930, attracted many poets, artists, writers and activists like Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and W.E.B. Du Bois.
DC Arts Center is currently exhibiting Displacement, by the Jamaican-born artist, Ainsley Burrows. This exhibition provides a fitting context to explore creative approaches to one of our most pressing societal problems: a mental health pandemic affecting vulnerable displaced communities worldwide.
Our aim is to bring together community stakeholders through the art of dialogue to explore innovative approaches toward addressing this double crisis. The workshop will provide a safe interactive space for participants to share their ideas, identify and engage with creative allies and visionaries, and better understand the challenges and opportunities in creating a viable mental health system. We will delve into various areas of discussion:
Expanding diasporic spaces
Addressing the social determinants of mental health with a focus on the relationship between legal services and mental health
Expanding culturally competent mental health services for displaced populations
Exploring how we may all benefit from neurodiversity and creativity
Crafting creative approaches to ecosystem transformation
Our ultimate vision for this event is an intellectually stimulating conversation that can serve as a point of departure for ongoing collaboration across disciplinary and institutional boundaries, leading to breakthrough strategies. We believe this dialogue will be special and contribute to novel ideas toward a paradigm shift.
$10 Admission
FREE for DCAC Artist Members