Thesis Show....

Art Therapy in Black…

CHICAGO – Rumble Arts Center, 3413 W. North in Chicago, will host Art Therapy in Black…, a public presentation by veronica precious bohanan  and Johannil Napoleón Castro Fornisa Ramirez as a graduation requirement for the School of the Art Institute’s Masters of Art Therapy program. A special opening night presentation and performance will begin the exhibit on Friday, May 17, 2013, 6pm, and will run through June 30.

Their work encompasses a mixed-media, visual arts, and performance presentation of “artist as therapist” identities and the artists’ thesis findings, comprised of the completed artwork created during the thesis process. The artists believe that as burgeoning art therapists and women of African descent, they were compelled to conduct thesis projects and put together an exhibit/presentation/performance that was culturally sensitive, acknowledged strengths, negate racial/cultural stereotypes, and promote innovative art therapy practices.

This collaboration reflects the artists’ complimentary topics and methods, as they are both using an arts-based research methodology, and they are both working with adolescents. Arts-based research is a method that systematically uses the artistic process as a way of examining/interpreting the experience by both investigators and research participants. Instead of traditional scientific, verbal, or mathematical analyses of phenomena, the art is the data.

Napoleón’s arts-based research focuses on African-American adolescent women survivors of sexual abuse in a high school based program. “I set out to investigate: How can creating a [wo]mannequin or female body form in art therapy help African-American adolescent women survivors of sexual abuse promote greater self-worth about their body image? My research is rooted in societal stereotypes, African-American history, and the adolescent’s sexual trauma experiences. To support them, I will also engage in the art-making process by creating a body form of my own.”

bohanan’s arts-based research focuses on her experiences as a clinical art therapy intern at a residential treatment center with predominately African American boys. “Within a culturally competent and trauma-informed framework, I explore how to effectively incorporate integrated arts and Positive Youth Development values into my art therapy practice with adolescent boys. Central to my exploration is my personal art-making/creative expressions and processing questions after each session to inform therapeutically sound directives and interventions.”