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New York, NY | ArtTable’s Annual Leadership Series | Arts in Health: Thriving Communities, Sustainable Organizations
October 15 | 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Nearly five years after the emergence of COVID-19, we live and work in a world transformed by the pandemic and the interrelated political and social crises it brought into high relief. The transformative power of creative experiences in helping human beings process trauma has never been clearer, and yet arts organizations still struggle to regain their footing, both financially and operationally. The growing field of arts in health, bolstered by innovative collaborations across academia and the private sector, provides essential new frameworks for measuring and articulating the societal value of the visual arts to consumers, funders, and healthcare professionals. ArtTable’s conversation will bring together experts in research, museum education, and artist partnerships to imagine a sustainable and equitable future for our communities and the vital organizations that serve them. Attendees will hear from leaders in the arts in health field and come away from this conversation with new frameworks for investigating and articulating the tremendous societal value of their work.
Taking place at NYU’s Wasserman Center, a convenient 3-minute walk from Manhattan’s Union Square, this engaging talk will be followed by a networking reception with light refreshments. Registration closes Monday, October 14—don’t miss your chance to join us for this special professional development opportunity!
Read below to learn more about our panelists:
- Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya, Transdisciplinary Artist, Educator, and Community Builder; member of the President’s Committee on the Arts & Humanities
- Dr. Nisha Sajnani, Founding Co-Director, Jameel Arts & Health Lab | Director, NYU Drama Therapy Program | Editor, Drama Therapy Review
- Cris Scorza, Helena Rubinstein Chair of Education, Whitney Museum of American Art
- Moderator: Julia Hotz, Journalist and Author of THE CONNECTION CURE (Simon & Schuster)
About the Annual Leadership Series: This signature ArtTable program was initially launched in 2016, and since its inception, the series has fostered engaging conversations among prominent women and nonbinary professionals. It has provided a platform for these influential voices to discuss the most pressing and relevant topics within our industries.
Program Admission:
- ArtTable Member – $35
- Friend of Member – $45
- Non-Member – $55
Not a member? Join today!
Please note, registration for this event closes on Monday, October 14, at 4:00 PM. We are unable to accommodate walk-in registrations for this event.
Meet Our Panelists
Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya
Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya is a transdisciplinary artist, educator, and community builder based in Brooklyn, New York. The daughter of Thai and Indonesian immigrants, her practice spans sculpture, large-scale murals, installation, and public art campaigns. Through defiant storytelling, her work brings forth colors, patterns, textures, histories, and rituals to amplify marginalized voices. Amanda has investigated how to create liminal spaces that can serve as conduits for healing and transformation. She is a 2024 New York City Artadia Awardee, a 2023 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow in Visual Arts and Civic Practice Artist in Residence with Poster House and the San Francisco Asian Art Museum.
In 2022, she transformed Lincoln Center’s campus with GATHER: a series of monuments and rituals that examined how ceremony, sound, and textiles can inscribe new meaning to memory and foster unexpected belonging. As artist-in-residence with the NYC Commission on Human Rights, Amanda’s art series celebrating the resilience of the AAPI community, I Still Believe in Our City, reached millions in New York City and worldwide through reclaiming billboards, bus shelters, subway tunnels, buildings, and the cover of TIME Magazine. Her work has been shown at the Cooper Union, Times Square, Lincoln Center, and recognized by The New York Times, Harpers Bazaar, and the Guardian. She has received support from the Sloan Foundation, the Café Cultural Foundation, and the Jerome Foundation. Her work is held in permanent collections at the Museum of the City of New York, the Goldwell Open Air Museum, the Library of Congress, the Museum of Chinese in America, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In 2023, she was appointed to the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities where she advises the President on how art can foster community well-being.
Nisha Sajnani, PhD., RDT-BCT
Dr. Sajnani is a co-founding, co-director of the Jameel Arts & Health Lab, established as a collaboration between the WHO Regional Office for Europe, NYU Steinhardt, Culturunners, and Community Jameel, with a mission to measurably improve lives through the arts. She is also Associate Professor and Director of the Program in Drama Therapy at NYU Steinhardt and on faculty with the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma where she lectures on the role of the arts in global mental health. Sajnani is a global leader in a growing movement to advance understanding of how engaging in the arts can support people of all ages in living longer, fuller, and healthier lives.
She leads the Jameel Arts & Health Lab – Lancet Global Series on the health benefits of the arts, in collaboration with the WHO. Recent publications include a commentary for the National Endowment for the Arts on realizing the potential of the artists, arts therapists, and arts organizations as partners in clinical and public health in our homes, schools, and communities, a co-edited ebook on the psychological and physiological benefits of the arts, a Howlround article on teaching theater in times of crisis, and the first WHO policy brief on the role of the arts in supporting the mental wellbeing of people who are forcibly displaced. She is the principal editor of Drama Therapy Review and serves on the editorial boards of The Arts in Psychotherapy and the Journal of Applied Arts & Health.
Cris Scorza
As the Helena Rubinstein Chair of Education at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Scorza provides vision, leadership, and strategic direction for the Museum’s education program. She oversees interpretation and educational content; public programs and academic engagement; social impact and learning aligning school, youth, and family programs; and access and community programs. In addition, she plays an active role in Whitney’s Latinx initiatives and evolving Spanish-language bilingual efforts. Scorza creates programs for diverse communities that incite inquiry, build self-esteem, foster an interest in art history, and respond to a contemporary culture centered on equity and inclusion.
She has worked in renowned institutions such as the New Museum, MoMA, the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. At MCASD, Scorza and her team implemented a variety of programs tailored to the surrounding community, including collaborations with artists and arts organizations in the U.S./Mexico border region, leadership development for teens with an emphasis on social justice, and cutting-edge work with combat troops recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She has curated social practice exhibitions and community-centered collaborations at MCASD, such as Oscar Romo: Recovered Stream (2020); To-Do • A Mending Project (2019); and Sanctuary Print Shop (2018). As an arts administrator, she developed and managed a range of exhibitions, including Photography in Mexico: Selections from the Collection (2013); Alvaro Blancarte: Marking the Present (2015), DELIMITATIONS: A Survey of the 1821 United States-Mexico Border (2016); and Papel Chicano Dos: Works of Paper from the Cheech Marin Collection (2016). She has also authored essays on Las Hermanas Iglesias, Ramiro Gomez, John Valadez, and Daniel Guzman.
Scorza has served on professional and civic committees, including the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority Art Advisory Committee and the San Diego Civic Youth Ballet Diversity and Inclusion Advisory. She is also an adjunct professor at Baruch College, CUNY, in the Arts Administration Masters Program. Scorza, born in Mexico City, studied painting at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. She has a B.A. in arts administration and art history from Baruch College, CUNY, an M.A. in leadership in museum education from Bank Street College of Education, and a Diversity and Inclusion Certificate from Cornell University.
Julia Hotz, moderator
Julia Hotz is a solutions focused journalist based in New York. Her stories have appeared in The New York Times, WIRED, Scientific American, The Boston Globe, Time, and more. She helps other journalists report on the big new ideas changing the world at the Solutions Journalism Network. THE CONNECTION CURE: The Prescriptive Power of Movement, Nature, Art, Service, and Belonging (Simon & Schuster, 2024) is her first book.
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