art and food as healing justice

Identity is the history that has gone into bone and blood and reshaped the flesh. Identity is not what we were but what we have become, what we are at this moment.

Nick Joaquín

I am a first generation South Asian Pacific Islander American of Filipina and Indian descent, a cisgender able-bodied woman, a US born citizen, the daughter of immigrants, a descendant of healers, a working mother to mixed race children, a feminist-activist, caregiver, mental health practitioner, educator, socially engaged artist, and scholar in terms not defined by a white, colonial, patriarchal, academic system, but by women storytellers, cultural weavers and social framers.

My work explores the visual, performative and culinary arts as acts of disruption, solidarity and care. I seek to create spaces in my community where art making and creative engagement are forms of healing and change. Spaces that exist in between and outside of the 'norm' and center non-dominant stories that are often silenced or go unheard.

Through my work I seek to create third spaces as a form of healing and change in my community. These spaces exist in between and outside of the 'norm' and utilize the arts to center stories that are often silenced or go unheard.

What is Third Space Arts?

Third Space Arts is an evolving archive of my practice as an artist, educator, art therapist, and activist. Many of the projects and initiatives that I am involved with are in collaboration with fellow artists, makers and healers, grassroots movements, local community groups and arts organizations. These efforts take physical, virtual, and even metaphorical form, but they all center on art as a vehicle for self-expression, fostering relationships, building community, and social change. With a focus on elevating the work and amplifying the voices of people representing all expressions of identity - gender, sexuality, race, culture, ethnicity, ability, and social and economic status - third space arts is an intersection of identities and ideologies that serve to create spaces where people come together to engage in dialogue, harness the power of creativity, and build a more just community.

Life is not what you alone make it.

Life is the input of everyone who touches your life and every experience that enters it.

We are all part of one another.

Yuri Kochiyama