Making Our Own Medicine: A Weaving of Words & Water with Ziedah Diata

Join artist Ziedah Diata for a guided mantra-creation workshop where we will draw, doodle, write, and weave words with the healing sounds of water. Each participant will leave with a personal prayer, poem, meditation, or mantra to soothe the soul. Participants are invited to record and share their creation as part of the final PORTALS installation and performance. Open to all ages and experience levels.

PORTALS: Traversing Black Continuums is presented as part of Recess’s Session program, that provides artists the resources, space, and support to realize ambitious projects in collaboration with the public.

Access Note: All program space at 46 Washington Avenue is fully accessible for wheelchair users. Our restrooms are gender-neutral and ADA-compliant. Administrative offices are located up one flight of stairs, but we offer alternative meeting and workspace on the ground floor. For programs in both of our spaces, we will do our best to accommodate requests. If you have specific access questions or needs, please email [email protected].

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About the Artist

Ziedah Diata is a Brooklyn, New York-based artist, attorney and nervous system hygiene coach who facilitates social health and social art experiences rooted in self-inquiry and community connection. She teaches creative, body-based, science-supported practices for cultivating resilience, growing capacity and healing communities carrying the weight of chronic and systemic stressors. Ziedah brings to her work a unique perspective framed by her personal journey with stress and the themes--harm, repair, trauma, empathy and transformation--that emerged in testimony during her 17-year career at the New York State Department of State, where she served as Chief Administrative Law Judge during the onset and peak of COVID-19.

Ziedah has worked with cultural organizers, lawyers, educators, judges, healers and law schools. In 2023, Ziedah launched Bed-Stuy Drawn Together, an intergenerational art-making and storytelling project, in collaboration with Stoop Stories and the Annual Stoops Art Crawl. She was an awardee of the 2023 Laundromat Project Create Change Fellowship and the 2024 Bethany Arts Community Multidisciplinary Residency.

Ziedah has served as an advisor for several organizations focused on creating a more just and compassionate world, including the Restorative Justice Initiative and the National Center for Access to Justice at Fordham Law. Ziedah is a graduate of University of Maryland at College Park and Georgetown University Law Center. Ziedah's art projects, coaching and workshop offerings are shared on her website and on Instagram.

ziedahdiata.com

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