Capitol Modern Presents: Arts in Healing with Peter O'Connor

A practical drama workshop for working with children of all ages to consider the nature of hope. Using a picture book and the piece of art Dreamscape by Gary Mukai, Peter will illustrate how he has used it in disaster settings around the world.

Seats are available by registration only. If tickets are unavailable (or for additional questions), please email Danica Rosengren to be put on a wait-list: [email protected]

Professor Peter O’Connor is the Director of the Centre for Arts and Social Transformation at the University of Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. He has over 40 years of creating theatre in prisons, psychiatric hospitals, disaster zones, with the homeless and in schools. He has over 100 academic publications on the arts and its potential for change to bring about more socially just worlds. His award winning research focuses on the arts and healing, individually and communally.

When Wailuku-born artist Gary Mukai returned home from college, he got to meet Tadashi Sato. "You might see a lot of an artist's work, but when you see their personal presence -- there is an electricity that happens -- it's the best influence to get you started," reflects Mukai, "(Sato) said that if you paint realistically, you can go all the way to photo realism, but then where do you go? If you paint in the abstract, whereas, the possibilities are infinite. When I paint, I get into the subconscious and become totally involved with the canvas. I let it come out. Before I know it four or five hours have passed. When it is done, it's done. That's it. The important thing is to be truthful to yourself and your emotions. If you stay truthful to that, eventually people will see. It's the truthfulness and honesty in a work of art that count."

Host or Publisher Capitol Modern: The Hawaiʻi State Art Museum