Urbano Project Celebrates the Culmination of WE HEAL, a Collaborative Project by Artist Nora Valdez

Urbano Project is hosting the celebratory culmination of "WE HEAL," an art project created by artist Nora Valdez in collaboration with patients from the Cancer & Sickle Cell Support Programs at Boston Medical Center, patients from the Dana Farber Institute, and youth from the Urbano Project. To register for the celebration, visit Eventbrite.

Begun in April 2020, WE HEAL encouraged patients, many of whom are immigrants, to explore and express their healing journey in artistic ways. It created a space for patients to be together, share, and learn in a nurturing atmosphere. Amid the pandemic, Valdez adjusted her workshops to function in a digital space where patients, youth, and the artist worked together to explore the topic of healing. What images, words, people, and foods bring comfort and aid healing? What inspires and brings hope? Participants created collages, mandalas, poems, and personal prayer flags to foster peace, compassion, strength, delight, and wonder and to spread goodwill. They also recorded stories of their individual healing journeys and integrated them along with home and family photos, favorite landscapes, and sentimental images into the project's video documentation.

Join us Friday, March 19th, 2021, from 6:30 to 8:00 pm EST on Zoom for the presentation of the final WE HEAL book and a 25-minute video co-produced by Nora Valdez and artist Dont'e Thomas, which shares some of the participants' stories and experiences. This will be followed by a conversation with the artist and Q&A session inviting questions from the public. A recording of the presentation and the Valdez/Thomas video and book will be available to view at www.urbanoproject.org after the event.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Nora Valdez is a born and raised Argentinian and a Boston-based artist who has been working and exhibiting since 1977. Since the beginning of her practice, Valdez has used sculpture and installations to create images that reflect on the nature of change, the life of the individual, and the natural or societal forces that buffet our souls. Most recently, her focus has been on the nature of home, the immigrant experience, and roots/rootlessness. In 2020, she received the NEFA Creative City grant for her project WE HEAL.