Last week we shared Part 1 of this series featuring three of the six community members depicted in Irene Juárez O’Connell's mural Sana, Sana: We Heal Together. Telling their stories, in their words, the snippets from O'Connell's interviews detail how each of these local community builders see, find, and foster healing in Santa Cruz County.
The focal point of our outdoor exhibition, Community is Collective Care, O’Connell's mural incorporates the objects they share in the interview support or represent healing for each of them.
Micha is an artist and theorist, a trans Latinx woman and a healer. She uses art and music to process personal and environmental trauma as well as investigate structural oppression along lines of race, gender, immigration status and ability. Micha is an abolitionist envisioning futures of decolonial liberation and is pictured here holding a bass guitar.
"We cannot heal alone I think that community is healing is the only kind of healing. We need someone to witness us, to hold space for us, to mirror and reflect our pain in order to process those feelings, and move on."
Luis was born with Spina Bifida and has been wheelchair-bound all his life. Raised in Watsonville, Luis currently works at Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos offering cultural education and positivity to youth in detention. Luis holds an image of the Virgin de Guadalupe.
"Community healing to me is being able to help others. And also let them know they are not alone. Before you go on to the next recording I want to leave you a quote from Tupac, 'for every dark night there is a brighter day.'"
Luna is a Hoodoo Healer, Equity Educator, and mother based in Santa Cruz. Luna holds a conch shell and a woven fan with a candle by her feet, instruments used in her to summon her ancestors in her healing practice.
"I envision healing as acknowledging what we have been through. Acknowledging what we've been through before the trauma of colonization. Bringing ourselves to a place of wholeness and being able to reimagine what thriving looks like within the context of the trauma we've experienced."
Visit the exhibition located outside the museum in Downtown Santa Cruz or learn more about muralist, Irene Juarez O'Connell.
Wed, Nov 11, 2020
Sep 4, 2020 – Jul 14, 2021
Stroll through this outdoor exhibition to imagine individual and collective pathways toward healing with artist Irene Juárez O’Connell.
Wed, Sep 2, 2020
