Art & Storytelling: The Body Map Series

 

Art & Storytelling: The Body Map Series

Listening for a Change collaborated in a program/exhibition with the Museums of Sonoma County

An exhibition at the History Museum of Sonoma County
May 1-June 8, 201
September, 2013-May, 2015

Listening for a Change conducted video recorded oral history interviews with participants as they created “body maps”.  All interviews were edited, transcribed, and translated into Spanish or English and shown at the exhibition on multiple video screens.  Excerpts from interviews were included in the exhibition program

In 2013, the Museums of Sonoma County launched a new series of art programs called “Art and Storytelling” outside of the Museum and in community centers in Santa Rosa.  The idea was to begin working with immigrant [populations that are not typically served by the Museum’s programs, to engage multi-generational families in making art and to interview the participants to better understand who they are and where they come from.

The Art and Storytelling project focused on creating Body Maps. This is a type of artist-led program based in a school of thought called “Narrative Therapy” which was pioneered at the University of Cape Town in South Africa in working with HIV patients.  Body Mapping was selected because it works on the basis of peer education and empowers participants to share their experiences. In the context of this project, Body Mapping was an artist-directed workshop process where the artists acted as facilitators who do a series of workshops leading up to the creation of a Body Map, which is a large-scale drawing and/or collage that reflects and illustrates the individual stories of the participants. In addition to creating a visual representation of one’s story, oral history interviews were conducted and recorded of many of the participants.