Cultural Healing
through Story, Song,
and Symbol

A community arts project exploring how art, culture, and tradition can open conversations about mental health across Asian and Asian American communities in Austin.

FocusArts-based pathways to behavioral health
MethodFocus group interviews → translation into art → art-sharing event with the community
CommunityAsian & Asian American residents, Austin TX
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Why this project

The silence between generations

For many Asian American families, mental health struggles meet a language gap — not just of words, but of frameworks for understanding pain itself.

BETWEEN SILENCES
"Mom, my doctor said I have depression."
"There is no such thing as depression in our dictionary."
— extracted from a participant's real-life story, Austin
56%
White adults with mental illness who received care
40%
Hispanic adults with mental illness who received care
38%
Black adults with mental illness who received care
36%
Asian adults with mental illness who received care — the lowest of any group

Source: KFF, 2024. Key Data on Health and Health Care by Race and Ethnicity.

Stigma, language barriers, family expectations, and a reliance on Western clinical models all stand between Asian and Asian American communities and the care they need. We wanted to ask: what if healing could start somewhere more familiar — in a story, a song, a brushstroke?

How we worked

From living rooms to gallery walls

Three stages carried each story from a quiet conversation into something the whole community could hold.

Multiple
Community partners across Austin supported recruitment and outreach for the project
5
Language-group focus interview facilitators, conducting interviews in participants' own languages
3
Collaborating artists, translating interview themes into original artwork
Recruitment flyer inviting Vietnamese community members in Austin to join the study
One of four language-specific recruitment flyers shared with the community.
01Stage One — Listen

Focus group interviews

We interviewed 20 participants across four language groups about their lived experiences with stigma, silence, and the search for culturally rooted ways of healing.

Pencil sketch in progress for the project poster artwork
Poster artwork, in progress.
Illustrated storybook spread showing an elder writing calligraphy that reads peace and harmony
Illustrated storybook, in progress.
02Stage Two — Translate

Interview themes, translated into art

Working with three collaborating artists, we translated interview themes into two pieces of original artwork — a poster and an illustrated storybook — letting participants' own words shape the imagery itself.

Two attendees examining framed artwork and a tablet showing calligraphy at the art-sharing event
Attendees engaging with the artwork at the exhibition.
03Stage Three — Share

Public art & exhibition

On May 2, 2026, the finished artwork was shared with the community at AARC CelebrASIA 2026, an event attended by 1,144 people.

View the full photo set →

The artworks

The interactive storybook

Four interactive stories of memory, return, and home — built from the interviews above. Drag sideways, click to open. The companion poster artwork was exhibited in print only, so only the storybook is shown here.

Book I
Our Secret Haven
Book II
Between Leaving and Returning
Book III
What We Return To
Book IV
The Cultural Bridge
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