Body Mapping Project

Body mapping unlocks positive personal images

The poignant and strongly uplifting personal stories and related paintings featured in this website (to read the stories click on the links on the left column) come through coalition partner TICAH, the Trust for Indigenous Culture and Health, in cooperation with Art2Be, a group of Kenyan and European visual artists and therapists.
 
TICAH (www.ticahealth.org) was founded in Kenya in 2003 to enhance the positive links between health and cultural knowledge, practice, belief, ritual, and artistic expression. It works throughout Africa and Asia, focusing on AIDS and traditional medicine, sexuality and gender, food and art activism. An offshoot, TICAH-USA, was recently established in New York for fundraising and to run exhibitions and companion programs in North America. TICAH’s activities include:

• Research and training in comprehensive AIDS care.
• Policy work to improve the quality of and availability of treatment choices.
• Projects to encourage recognition of positive living as a lifelong process.
• Convening of conferences and expert committees on AIDS.
• Documentation to stimulate attention to grassroots solutions.
• Activist advocacy to raise HIV-positive voices in effective ways that influence policies and programs.

Art2be: Art for positive living and social change

Art2Be (www.Art2bebodymaps.com) uses art to allow children, youth and adults to tell their life stories, share their concerns and dreams with their families, and campaign for their rights in public. It was founded to work with marginalised groups in Kenya and has also spread its activities internationally. The organization prides itself on its diversity. “We recognise that HIV is a reality for us all. We are HIV positive and negative, from the slums, estates and well-off residences,” a spokesperson says. Its activities include:

• Therapeutic workshops for adults and children who experience discrimination and social marginalization.
• Creative encounter events that bring together community groups from different backgrounds and cultures to confront prejudices and explore issues of power and social change through creative group work.
• Art-based community programs and awareness campaigns that use creative art and dance as a vehicle for communication within communities.