Sound Mind/Sound Body panel

media release: Sound Mind/Sound Body is an art exhibition that focuses on the intersection between disability and mental health. It features 21 artists from across Dane County working in a diverse range of media. 

Sound Mind/Sound Body seeks to destigmatize mental health through art. In particular the exhibition will explore how disability and mental health affect each other. In a pandemic-altered world, we have been forced to reexamine our individual and collective relationships to the concepts of physical and mental health. Recent studies have registered massive spikes in anxiety, depression, and PTSD, and of this, the disability community has taken the brunt, with disabled people often experiencing severe mental distress due to factors including increased isolation, lack of resources, and financial hardships. 

Sound Mind/Sound Body provides an artistic response to this world, exploring how physical, cognitive, and sensory disabilities along with stigmatization and marginalization can affect mental health. Conversely, it also addresses the processes by which mental illness becomes physically disabling.

Sound Mind/Sound Body will be having a free, public opening reception on February 3 from 6-9pm at Common Wealth Gallery on Baldwin Street. In order to make this exhibition accessible to the disabled community, masks will be required in the gallery. We are also asking that the space remain fragrance free. The show will then run until February 16, with gallery hours running from 6am - 6pm on weekdays and 8:30am - 1pm on Saturdays. In conjunction with the show, Pinney Library is hosting a free panel featuring a selection of participating artists on February 9 at 6pm. The panel at Pinney Library will feature Anne E Stoner, Briana Richardson, Lyra Dark, Malakai Schulz, Nadine Bearson, Rose Menyon Heflin, and moderator Ty S.

This project is funded in part by a grant from the Madison Arts Commission, with additional funds from the Wisconsin Arts Board. This project is supported by Dane County Arts with additional funds from the Endres Mfg. Company Foundation; The Evjue Foundation, Inc., charitable arm of The Capital Times; the W. Jerome Frautschi Foundation; and the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation.

Sound Mind/Sound Body features the work of: Anne E Stoner, Aeryn Streiffer, Briana Richardson, Carley “Car” Reigger, Dean Amethyst, Hailey McLaughlin, Heather Andersen, Heather Sarabia, K.A.P., kate mackenzie, Lyra Evans, Mabel Thaden, Malakai Schulz, Melanie Sartori, Nadine Bearson, Olivia Knopke-Mooney, Rose Menyon Heflin, Sara Meredith, Ty S, AK Beane.