Stewards: Facilitating Healing in Public Space with Taboo Health
As a non-profit collective of health story-tellers and creatives, Taboo Health has been exploring the power of art and design to facilitate healing. The collective’s most recent work deals with difficult issues such as medical assistance in dying, grief and loss, and the medicalization of palliative care—topics which are publically explored at their annual Dying. Festival, a co-creation with the Design for Health Studio at OCAD University.
As the world grapples with the collective grief of COVID-19, creative strategies for improving public health and public safety are an essential concern. Leveraging art and cultural engagements as a medium for collective experience, Taboo Health aims to transform and destigmatize critical discourse on difficult subjects—such as death—as a way to more effectively engage in health promotion. By creating opportunities for individuals to hold space together and engage in good faith, this work allows personal and collective, and static and dynamic notions of safety and comfort to coexist and be better understood.
In this week’s Steward’s piece, we connected with Taboo Health’s founder Maria Cheung and two collaborators, Chieng Luphuyong and Fran Quintero Rawlings to explore the roles of art, co-creation, and continued learning in creating physically, mentally, and culturally safe spaces.
About Maria and Her Work
Maria Cheung (she/her) is the founder of Taboo Health, a non-profit that is making healing trend, through art and design, tackling the most challenging health topics. She is a policy maker in acute care and a public health professional (MPH). She is passionate about health communications, health promotion and systems design with the creative sector. She is endlessly fascinated by the beautiful, awkward and uncomfortable spaces felt in between the black and white.
Her Thoughts on Safety
As one of the creative directors for the Dying. festival, Maria recognizes that fostering safe spaces for participants to engage is paramount. In shaping the content of the festival, she aims to focus on the journey of dying, rather than a finite moment in time, using language that is invitational and indicative of this. Combining approaches that are sometimes solemn and at other times humorous, the curated projects of the Dying. festival solicit engagement that reflects the fluid and dynamic nature of the grieving process, publicly breaking down the taboos around death and promoting healing.
“As a community of practice, it’s been important to model this vulnerability to each other, calling ourselves out, and calling each other in. We need feedback to keep learning, and we won’t always get it right, but safety in public space includes work with vulnerability for transformative justice, equity and inclusion for all.”
About Fran and Her Work
Fran Quintero Rawlings (she/her) is a systemic designer, researcher and artist, passionate about working on projects that improve both the human and design experience, especially those at the intersection between social justice and broader systemic change. She enjoys curating and provoking important conversations around equity, fairness, wellness and gender through curated public installations and events. She is committed to creating more accessible ways to help others talk about death and grief, and you can read her published work here and follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @frawlspace.
Fran’s Thoughts on Safety
Fran sees safety as being the guiding principle in her work. Frequently asking questions that acknowledge the power balance between designer and participant is key to her practice – leading to strategies that help to provide comfort and transparency in how the work is conducted. Being open to feedback and allowing participants the opportunity to review their responses is a key component when working on projects such as the Dying. Festival.
“The principle of safety must always be at the forefront - encompassing physical and mental safety, guided by pillars of participation, consent, access and equity. As people’s needs and circumstances change, so must how we understand what is comfortable, as part of a continuous welcoming and learning feedback cycle from the users / participants of that space.”
About Chieng and His Work
Chieng Luphuyong (he/him) is an environmental designer, completing a Masters of Design for Health at OCAD University. He couples participatory design methods and strengths-based community design approaches to identify design opportunities that may address health disparities faced by individuals from racialized and structurally marginalized groups. He was part of Dr. Kate Sellen’s team in creating Dying. Threads at Dying.2020, a public participation installation which set out to promote death positivity - a shift towards more openness regarding end of life experiences.
Chieng’s Thoughts on Safety
Chieng recognizes that cultural safety is an important aspect of developing more equitable access to healthcare and works to use its principles to foster inclusive spaces for multiple truths and ways of knowing health.
“Putting cultural safety into practices means working across differences by acknowledging that safety is subject to individual appraisal; therefore, safety cannot be defined for someone else (or on behalf of others). However, safe spaces can be understood with others through co-creation of the meaning of safety and its conditions.”
To learn more about Taboo Health, join in on community discussions and creative activities at their 2021 Dying. Festival. You can follow Taboo Health on Facebook and Instagram @taboohealth.
