Celebrating and Honoring Mental Health Awareness Month!
While spring unfurls itself to its full glory in May, at optiMize, we also celebrate and honor this month in recognition of Mental Health Awareness.
At optiMize, we practice reflection and intention to raise awareness, breaking down stigma, and fostering a culture of mindfulness, inclusivity, and support for mental well-being all year long. We believe that mental health is crucial for intellectual and communal growth since it is a fundamental aspect of overall well-being. In our mosaic community, we enable everyone to thrive both personally and professionally by being supportive, empathetic, and through active listening. Our commitment to mental health and creating an overall safe and inclusive environment ensures that our ventures not only address critical social issues but also promote a holistic approach to innovation and success. Thus, with our SIC fellows and participants, we always meet the person first to ensure their well-being before we start conversations regarding their ventures. Although it is an integrated year-long practice in our community, we wanted to take a moment to bring social awareness to Mental Health Awareness Month—today.
Over the past few years, we have had the privilege to support numerous projects designed to promote mental health and wellness. Let’s celebrate and support these incredible current and past fellows in their creative ventures that address Mental Health-related issues for their community.
Thrive Art Collective
A series of workshops that help underrepresented artists build skills, access resources, and grow their creative careers.
Cohort 13: DaJaniere Rice
As an artist herself, DaJaniere understands how deeply creativity and mental health interconnect. For her, making art isn’t just about expression; it’s a way to process, heal, and feel safe. Her interpretation of art is not only to create the art itself but also to create a space for reflection, and if needed, to be “sacred.” In her practice, she creates moments of true reflection through the mind or the movement of a paintbrush, inviting vulnerability and self-exploration. However, as a woman of color, she understands the hardships and obstacles that artists like her face.
By understanding a problem in its core, DaJaniere expanded the possibilities of creating a space for not only herself but also for her community, for artists just like her.
“ For underrepresented artists, the path usually has extra layers of challenges, from limited access to resources to feeling unseen in creative spaces. That’s why I started Thrive Art Collective.”
Thrive Art Collective is a space where underrepresented artists can build the skills they need to grow professionally while feeling supported for who they are. Through partnering with local businesses, organizations, and industry experts, Thrive Art Collective offers direct access to knowledge, tools, and networks that are often out of reach, such as grant writing, marketing, networking, and portfolio building. She is creating a community where artists feel a sense of belonging in a world that is designed to make underrepresented artists feel isolated, which adds to the suppression of creative flow and hinders their mental health. At Thrive Art Collective, one is welcome as they are, to learn, give, receive, feel, and even just “be.”
During the summer fellowship, we have observed DaJaniere supporting her fellow peers with resources, kindness, and her presence.
“Thanks to optiMize, I’ve been able to bring this vision to life and provide artists with the support they need to build not just sustainable careers, but lives rooted in confidence, connection, and purpose. I’m so grateful to Jeni, Aja, Candace, Casey, Homayra, Turner, and the rest of the optiMize team for believing in this project, being a vessel of knowledge and resourcefulness, and for being an incredible support system. I’d also like to shout out my mentor Finn for being a constant source of wisdom, creativity, and encouragement.”
Learn more about her venture
The Fun Project
A program with recurring events that are fun and joyous experiences for individuals and families without stable housing.
Cohort 13: Chritina Brigham
Chritina is working tirelessly to create a safe space for a community that deserves to be known, heard, read about, and respected. Chritina wears many hats; she is raising a beautiful daughter named Sydney, working full time, and studying Elementary Education and Business at WCC, while also participating in the summer fellowship. She works and learns with the hope that her venture will benefit from the knowledge and skills gained through the steps she is currently taking. Her passionate involvement in The Fun Project stems from its focus on addressing the negative mental impact of being unhoused, a struggle she is intimately familiar with. By providing respite and stress relief, the venture hosts events and experiences that inspire joy. Oftentimes, in our hustle, we forget that the unhoused in our community deserve a moment to have fun, feel a sense of community, and despite their lives lived in disparity, their mental health matters as well and needs to be addressed.
We are incredibly inspired that Chritina is addressing such an important issue single-handedly! She says, though she is working on this project solo, she is not alone—her community is growing inside and outside of optiMize.
“OptiMize is one of the programs I participated in that has catapulted this project to where it is now… there’s been so much growth. optiMize guided me through stakeholder engagement, assisting with my pitch, and getting me connected with several others to get many tasks done. Building a website for instance. But optiMize supports more than just ventures. I know this personally due to all the support I have received and continue to receive from the staff, mentors, and my fellows. OptiMize is building a community that I’m so grateful to be a part of. With the help of optiMize, my greatest hope is to be able to launch this summer.”
West African Dance Therapy
A program that offers a series of dance classes that connect West African and African American dance music and culture.
Cohort 13: Alana Michelle Howard
With West African Dance Therapy, Alana is crafting a 12-week program that infuses the rhythm and spirit of African and African American dance to uplift the Black community. Her heartfelt mission is to offer culturally resonant West African dance therapy classes for young African Americans and their families who are navigating the impacts of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome (P.T.S.S.).
Recognizing this deeply rooted societal issue, Alana is dedicated to becoming a bridge through her understanding of Black dance, music, culture, and her expertise in the performing arts and creative exploration. With a BFA in Visual and Performing Arts, and lived experiences as a black woman, she is rediscovering herself as a "Jack of All Trades," saying, "I know a little about a lot, and working on mastering the dance in relation to music."
“P.T.S.S. is a theory that explains the etiology of many of the adaptive survival behaviors in African American communities throughout the USA and within the diaspora. It is a condition that exists as a consequence of multigenerational oppression of Africans and their descendants resulting from centuries of chattel slavery— a form of slavery which was predicted on the belief that African Americans were inherently/genetically inferior to whites.”
This summer, Alana is immersed in black dance ethnography, using it to inform her dance research and gather insights to support her venture. She is connecting with choreographers in Detroit to bring their talents to the Ann Arbor area and is busy updating the website to boost revenue through online classes, merchandise, and more. Additionally, she will be traveling to Ghana in June to research and train under leading artists in West African Dance. Her efforts are in pursuit of securing the funding needed to expand this meaningful project and bring ethnographic insights to the practice, which is deeply rooted in her lived experience and identity.
Learn more about her venture
NeuroArts Production
Prioritizing Minds, Fueling Innovation
Cohort 12: Sasha Gusikhin
NeuroArts Productions is pioneering the space where neuroscience, technology, and the arts intersect, creating innovative events to advocate for person-centered, science-integrated mental health treatment. Sasha's venture ranges from gallery exhibitions to live performances, often highlighting community members' experiences with mental health, stigma, and navigating treatment challenges.
In June 2024, on the final day of the SIC Summer Fellowship, NeuroArts Productions launched its first exhibition with The Deep End Cafe and Gallery, founded by Candace Curtis-Cavazos, Mentor & External Engagement Manager at optiMize. The event featured interactive art focusing on mental health, stigma, and the interplay between neurophysiology and environment. The opening included a performance-presentation advocating for person-centered mental health care and tackled the stigma surrounding mental health and neurological disorders. This performance featured premieres of works highlighting experiences with the mental health treatment system, the relationship of self and mental health, and the neuroscience of perception through improvisation and EEG technology.
Visual artists included Summer Pengelly, SinYu Deng, Cynthia Zhou, Mary Milhaupt, the Aphasia Community Friendship Center, and Dallas McGhee-Henry, who is also the Community Partnerships Manager at optiMize. Composers featured were Nicole Knorr and David Magumba.
Since 2024, her venture has continued to thrive, hosting numerous events like Paint The Town, Ode To Joy, and “All In Your Head”. If you knew Sasha, the first reflection in your mind hearing her name would be a person with a wide smile entering any room and brightening the mood instantly. We believe that Sasha's ability to lead with empathy and kindness and her immense dedication and hard work have enabled NeuroArts Productions to exceed possibilities in just a year, and we look forward to seeing what she will bring next.