ART & Healing

A dialogue around art as therapy, trauma-informed expression, and how the arts can heal, rejuvenate, and strengthen our communities.

ART & Healing featured speakers & artists:

Doriane C. Miller, MD

A South Side native, Dr. Miller is the inaugural director of the Center for Community Health and Vitality at the University of Chicago Medical Center. The Center for Community Health and Vitality’s mission is to improve population health outcomes for residents on the South Side of Chicago through community-engaged research, demonstration and service models. Dr. Miller joined the University of Chicago in January 2009. She also brings over 30 years of experience as a community-based primary care provider who has worked with under-resourced minority communities. She has a special interest in behavioral health. Dr. Miller is the author of two plays, ‘It Shoudda Been Me’ addressing the issue of adolescent depression in the face of community violence and ‘Wish You Were Here’ addressing the recognition of intimate partner violence. Dr. Miller received her medical degree from the University of Chicago. She completed a Primary Care Internal Medicine Residency and a General Medicine/Clinical Epidemiology Fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco.

Justine Ogbevire (Moderator)

Justine Ogbevire was born and raised on the Northside of Chicago in the Rogers Park area. She is an activist for prison abolition and a hip hop artist; she currently works for a Hip Hop, Restorative Justice, Prison Abolition Org called Circles and Ciphers. Her role in this org is working on YCC (Youth Care Collective) Political Education for black and brown youth who are incarcerated in Cook County Jail. She also holds a role at Kaba Studios, an organization developed 2 years ago and named after feminist/activist/prison abolitionist Mariame Kaba. Justine is also a Street Level Alum.

Robin Reid Drake

Robin Reid Drake is a Chicago (Kiikaapoi, Peoria, Kaskaskia, Bodéwadmiakiwen & Myaamia lands) based writer, artist and educator originally from Greensboro, North Carolina (Eno, Sappony & Shakori lands). Drake works as a teaching artist in Chicago Public Schools, where they engage young people around intersectional subjects of queer & trans history, and the power of creative processes to spark personal and community healing. They hold an MFA in writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in writing from the University of North Carolina at Asheville. Drake’s written work can be read in Palimpsest, WUSSY, Understory Quarterly, and Foglifter Press’ Home Is Where You Queer the Heart, among others. Find (just a tiny bit) more at www.robinreiddrake.com.