MAY 2022
To our families & education partners
This month’s issue of ArtVenture offers recommendations for cultural events, art exhibitions and at-home/in-school art making activities to help you and your family prioritize wellbeing, whether in your home, school or community.
May 2022 Calendar with upcoming Cool Culture events & select museum exhibitions Information on Visiting Museums, Gardens, & Zoos to ensure that your trip to our cultural partners is safe and memorable Cool Kidz! with an art making activity and book recommendation Health + Wellbeing Resources Educators’ Corner highlighting the recent Dialogue: Wellbeing as a Community Value
Responding to Our World At Cool Culture, we believe that Health + Wellbeing are human rights, and ideally, a core value of the people, spaces, and communities in which we all inhabit. As you wind down from what has been another challenging school year amid the ongoing impact of the pandemic, we invite you to think about the mental, physical, and spiritual health of your family, students, and yourself. We are also aware that our communities, cities, and places far beyond are having to daily confront violence, whether it be random attacks in our streets or news reports about the war in Ukraine. Some of us can limit the amount of information we expose ourselves to, but those being directly affected do not have that option. We hope everyone in the Cool Culture community is consistently finding time to pause for moments of selfcare and can support their family members to do the same.
Visiting NYC’s Museums, Gardens & Zoos Though Covid-19 remains a concern, museums are beginning to modify their Covid-19 protocols for admission while safely welcoming visitors' families back. We encourage you to check out our online visitation portal to learn important safety protocols and vaccine requirements before your visit. Here’s a Family Mind, Body, Spirit Checklist to use before, during and at the end of your museum visit.
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may 2022 sunday 1
monday 2
Eid al-Fitr
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Eid al-Fitr
wednesday 4
thursday 5
friday
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Cinco de Mayo
Celebrate Eid al-Fitr, Brooklyn Children’s Museum [10am-5pm] AAPI Community Day with Chemin Hsiao, The Noguchi Museum [11am-6pm]
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CURATORS FOR EDUCATORS Seminar Bringing the Cool [10-11am/ virtual]
MOCAKids Storytime at Home: Love Yourself!, Museum of Chinese in America [4-4:45pm]
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Faith Ringgold: American People, The New Museum
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Healing Sound Bath, MoMa [11am & 1pm]
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14 Open Studio, Whitney Museum of Art
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CURATORS FOR EDUCATORS Dialogue Health + Wellbeing are Human Rights [11am-2pm]
Guadalupe Maravilla: Tierra Blanca Joven, Brooklyn Museum [ongoing]
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21 CURATORS FOR FAMILIES Family Day! Harlem Arts Stroll [11am-12:30pm]
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28 Raise Your Voice, Museum of New York City [ongoing exhibition]
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Memorial Day
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KEY Curators for Families is a cohort program for educators, caregivers and their families. New enrollment is currently closed, but ALL FAMILIES are invited to Family Day. Curators for Educators is offered to educators from centers and schools enrolled in the Family Pass Program.
Health + Wellbeing Resources As you know, we launched our We Are A Work of Art: Health + Wellbeing Initiative in the beginning of the year to promote holistic wellness - mind, body, spirit and civic - in our communities. (Check out our full launch video if you need a quick refresher on this initiative!). We hope you’ll take a moment to pause throughout your day and follow along with a virtual yoga session with Luz Emma Cañas of Rhythm and Breath Yoga or tune into our recent Ask a Doctor Q&A with Dr. Simbo Ige about how COVID-19 continues to impact our BIPOC communities. Dr Igbe is the Assistant Commissioner, Bureau of Health Equity Capacity Building at NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. .
You can find more videos on wellbeing, arts and culture by subscribing to our YouTube channel.
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Health + Wellbeing Resources Talking With Children About Traumatic Events
Observing and experiencing painful or trauma events affects our health and sense of wellness even when we think we are “managing” it. This is true for children. What signs do you normally look for to understand how your children are processing traumatic events? According to the National Institute of Mental Health, some of the common signs of stress and anxiety that show up in young children as a result of witnessing violence, experiencing bullying or harassment, or dealing with non-physical violence are: tantrums and irritability, sudden return to behaviors such as bed-wetting and thumb-sucking, increased fearfulness, incorporating aspects of the traumatic event into their imaginary play, or clinging to their caregivers.
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Health + Wellbeing Resources Talking With Children About Traumatic Events (cont'd) We’re here to support you as you create plans and routines to take care of your family’s holistic health! First, we remind and encourage you to make time to take care of yourself and seek help when needed. Below are select resources to help you start difficult conversations with your children about what’s going on in the world around us and to help them developing coping strategies:
Examine how your own biases or learned behaviors might inadvertently contribute to how your children are feeling. Try to limit your children’s news intake and if this is not possible, then talk with them about what they are understanding and feeling. Elevate positive stories whenever possible, but do not minimize the impact of the event. Approach conversations as openly as possible and try to not be reactive, but rather to listen carefully and with compassion.
Have regular check-ins with your children and watch for signs of distress, fear, and anxiety . Try to remain calm and use ageappropriate language. Find out what they know and how they feel about the situation.
Check out How to talk to your children about conflict and war (UNICEF) and Helping your children manage distress in the aftermath of a shooting (American Psychological Association) for more ways you can support and comfort your children during sensitive moments.
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COOL Kidz!
CREATING QUILTED STORIES
Last month during Curators for Families, we discussed the power of our imagination, about how an idea can turn into reality! We then learned about artist and storyteller Faith Ringgold, who used her imagination and experiences to create quilts about the racial and political struggles of African-Americans. Check out this activity sheet created by The New Museum of Contemporary Art to learn how to make your own Quilted Stories at home. While your family’s story is unique and unlike Faith Ringgold, what experiences are important to pass on? What are some memories you share or people you love to celebrate, and why?
Pictured L - R: Echoes of Harlem, 1980; Studio Museum in Harlem, Gift of Altria Group, Inc. & A Woman on a Bridge #1 of 5: Tar Beach, 1988
We’d love to see your creations and have you share them with other Cool Culture families! Please post pictures of your quilts on Cool Culture social media pages. @coolculture CoolCulture
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COOL Kidz! BOOK OF THE MONTH Listening to My Body by Gabi Garcia Illustrated by Ying Hui Tan
Gabi Garcia guides children through the practice of naming their feelings and the physical sensations that accompany them. Learning to tune into their bodies forms a foundation for self-regulation. During our Health + Wellbeing Jamboree at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, our on-site health care practitioner read the book to children, and said it was great for helping children understand the relationship between their bodily sensations and feelings to better voice their needs. You can find this book and similar titles at your local library and read it aloud with your family too. When you’re done, we encourage you to consider sharing the book with another family in your school/center or neighborhood before adding it to your library! If you’re having trouble finding the book in your community, you can follow along with your family by listening to the audio book with visuals.
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Educators' Corner CURATORS FOR EDUCATIONS: SEMINARS + DIALOGUES
“We tend to connect around our place identities. Creating opportunities or being open to how we experience a place helps us to value each other more.” - A sentiment shared by a member in our community after the April 19th Dialogue: Wellbeing as a Community Value
Creating beloved communities as spaces that foster belonging and acceptance, identifying health deserts and oases in our communities, and reflecting on how we can better listen to our communities’ needs: these were some of the gems our panelists offered at our last Dialogue. Panelists exchanged stories and shared their unique perspectives and strategies that came from both their professional work and private lives. Remember to check out the resources and see past sessions in our Cool Culture Community Resource Folder and visit our padlet board to see participant’s thoughts and reflections.
Christopher Godfrey, Assistant Professor at Pace University, Daralee Vázquez Garcia, Educational consultant, community educator, nonviolence practitioner & circle keeper; and Laura Sloan, Education Manager at Queens Museum share the importance of prioritizing wellbeing in our communities at Curators for Educator Dialogue #3:Wellbeing as a Community Value.
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Educators' Corner Our culminating Dialogue for spring 2022 – Health + Wellbeing are Human Rights – is a full day, in-person event facilitated in partnership with and at The Brooklyn Museum. As museums are opening up, so is Cool Culture slowly returning to hosting in-person workshops for educators. The May Dialogue is being designed to bring together the three prior conversations to identify strategies that center wellbeing in classrooms, schools and communities. It will include an exercise for combating stress, a gallery tour and resource packet. We encourage you to request permission to attend as soon as possible.
Curators for Educators to continue to support your work with families and expand the conversation on wellbeing in schools and centers.
We will share information about our upcoming family event and brainstorm ways to get Cool Culture families to attend in full force. Please register for the Seminar and Dialogue below:
Seminar Bringing the Cool May 11 - 10:00-11:00am [Virtual on Zoom] Dialogue Health + Wellbeing are Human Rights May 19 - 11:00am-3:00pm [In-person at The Brooklyn Museum] More about Curators for Educators: Curators for Educators ignites educators' approaches to providing families with culturally responsive introductions to the City’s often-intimidating network of cultural institutions and helping them to embrace artistic practice as a means to strengthen learning, healing, families and communities.
We also hope you’ll reserve time in your schedule to join us for our closing Seminar on May 11th - Bringing the Cool to Juneteenth (Saturday, June 19 at The Brooklyn Museum).
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