Arts and health organizations across Los Angeles County are joining together next week to explore the connections between the arts and health. The Los Angeles County Arts and Health Week, which is being hosted by LA Opera and runs from June 12 through June 18, will include a panel moderated by Shavonda Webber-Christmas, the Director of Community Benefits for L.A. Care Health Plan.
Christmas will lead the panel in a discussion on three different community projects that combine art and health:
- Karen Mack from LA Commons will discuss the Healthy Culture Hub Project, which will assemble a team of young people from 15 to 25 years of age to work with a professional artist to collect stories from students and community members in the area near Fremont High School in South L.A. They will create art that will raise awareness and engagement with health resources, art and healing spaces in the community.
- Heidi Duckler from Heidi Duckler Dance will discuss the MLK Residency Project. The artistic residency project on the MLK Community Hospital Campus is designed to promote civic pride, enhance the cultural vitality of South L.A. and bridge efforts between public health, art and culture.
- Denise Grande from the L.A. County Department of Arts & Culture will discuss Creative Wellbeing, a project that uses healing-centered and arts-based programming to create pathways for people to connect the dots between race, culture, health, equity, and inclusion. It offers a variety of services, including arts instruction for youth, facilitated self-care sessions for adults, and professional development for those who work with systems-impacted youth.
In addition to leading the discussion with the three panelists, Christmas will reflect on L.A. Care’s Community Health Investment Fund initiatives, including the Equity and Resilience Initiative, which for the past two years has offered more than $2 million in grants to minority-led, community-based organizations that have been addressing systemic racism and the continued social, emotional and economic distress exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic in the communities where L.A. Care members live and work.
The panel, which is part of a day-long Arts & Health Summit is being held:
Wednesday, June 15
10:40 am – 11:30 am
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion – Eva and Marc Stern Grand Hall
135 North Grand Avenue, Los Angeles
The panel is free. You can reserve a spot here.