For 18 months, the immigrants' rights advocacy group Corazón de Tucson worked on a project that involved providing immigrants and their families with arts therapy. Some really nice pieces resulted from that venture, and now organization is ready to showcase them in an upcoming exhibit.

Throughout the project, called Resolution Through Arts Engagement in the Era of SB1070, two local artists—Cristina Cardenas and Wesley Fawcett Creigh—collaborated with clinical therapist—Faviola Agustin—to develop a trauma therapy program, where migrants were given a space to vent about their experiences coming to the U.S. and the reasons for immigrating.

“The expressive arts not only inspire hope but also allow emotional pain and acute trauma to begin to heal and be released. The migrant families and members of Corazon allowed us access into their intimate journeys and personal lenses using artistic work. Each individual piece is unique and carefully created but collectively their commitment to resistance, healing, and hope supersedes any political or colonial structure,” says Faviola Agustin, who advised the lead artists in effective methods of arts therapy, in a press release. 

And so the exhibit Mis Historias/My Stories was born.

"For me the art classes made me feel like I had wings, it allowed me to travel. My experience in the workshops permitted me to feel emotions I do not feel in other activities; it freed me, gave me peace, it relaxed me and it taught me that even if I don’t have a lot of artistic ability I can still create," says Francisca Lopez, one of the therapy workshop participants. 

The opening reception for Mis Historias/My Stories is happening on Saturday, Sept. 19 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Tiny Town Gallery, 174 E. Toole Ave.