MPR and Mia Present Imagine Wellness: Connecting Around Mental Health & Creativity

Mar 24, 2016

Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) and the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) present a daylong gathering of artists, health professionals and community members to explore the relationship between mental health and creativity. The program includes live recording sessions of three radio and podcast shows and breakout activities. Attendees will also have time to connect with each other through gallery tours, art-making and a meal to continue the conversations. This program is made possible in part by the Arts and Culture Heritage Fund Created by the Minnesota Legacy Amendment and is supported by HealthPartners and Make It Ok campaign to start conversations about mental illness and stop the stigma.

What: MPR & Mia present Imagine Wellness: Connecting Around Mental Health & Creativity

When: Wednesday, April 13, 1-8:30 p.m.
Schedule of events:
1 p.m. Doors open

2 p.m. Live recording of The OK Show, hosted by Andrea Swensson of 89.3 The Current. With guest P.O.S. (of Doomtree)

3 p.m. Mia gallery tours and art-making activities
A Global Perspective on Creativity and Mental Health: Participants will travel through the Native American, African, and Asian galleries exploring objects that highlight the connections between creativity and mental health through history.
The Intersection of Creativity and Mental Health in Modern Art: Take a closer look at artists in the modern and contemporary galleries whose work creates a dialogue between the topics of creativity and mental health.

4:30 p.m. Live recording of MPR News with Tom Weber. With guests Caren Zucker and John Donvan, authors of "A Different Key, A Story of Autism"

5:30 p.m. Shared meal & art making activities

7 p.m. The Hilarious World of Depression, hosted by John Moe. With guests Sims (of Doomtree) and nationally acclaimed comedian Dana Gould
Where: Mia, 2400 Third Avenue S, Minneapolis

Tickets: $50. Available at tickets.artsmia.org

About the hosts
Andrea Swensson is a host and producer at Minnesota Public Radio's The Current, where she helms The Local Show, a weekly show dedicated to exploring the Minnesota music scene, and the O.K. Show podcast, which investigates the intersection between music and wellness. She has been covering Minnesota music actively since 2005. Prior to joining MPR she was the music editor of City Pages, where she founded the AAN AltWeekly Award-winning Gimme Noise music blog, and edited and contributed to online music sites Reveille Magazine and HowWasTheShow.com.

John Moe is the author of three books including ¡§Dear Luke, We Need to Talk, Darth: And Other Pop Culture Correspondences.¡¨ His writing has appeared in numerous humor anthologies as well as The New York Times Magazine, The Seattle Times, MSN, and many more publications. He has hosted nationally distributed public radio programs such as Wits, Weekend America and Marketplace Tech Report and his radio work has been featured on All Things Considered and Morning Edition. Locally, he can be heard on MPR News and The Current. He lives in St Paul.

Tom Weber is host of MPR News with Tom Weber, which is heard weekdays at 11am. The show focuses on all things Minnesota, from the latest headlines to the long-standing issues that define the state, to the quirky people who make this an interesting place to live. Tom joined MPR News in January 2008, serving as a general assignment reporter and as an award-winning education reporter before joining the newly created weekday news talk show The Daily Circuit as a co-host in 2012. He became host of MPR News with Tom Weber in late 2014. Weber also hosts several MPR news live events, including the Broadcast Journalist Series at the University of St. Thomas. Before moving to Minnesota, the Chicago native was a morning news anchor and reporter for KWMU St. Louis Public Radio for more than five years. He is the author of the travel book 100 Things to do in the Twin Cities Before You Die.

About the guests
P.O.S. built his reputation as an innovator, with an unlikely punk rock past and expressive, honest content. He re-earns the accolades with every release. He manages to capture his charisma on his records; they¡¦re driving and sincere, the dark moments counterbalanced by some giggling banter with the engineer.

Restless and passionate but with an unflinching realism at his core, Sims has seen enough of life to know there are no easy answers. His second full-length release, Bad Time Zoo, just released in February on Doomtree Records, reflects this rapper¡¦s ongoing quest for solid understanding in a society on the brink of dystopia. For Sims, it¡¦s been a long road.

Dana Gould is an American stand-up comedian and comedy writer who has been featured on HBO, Showtime, and Comedy Central. He is known for portraying Gex the gecko. He is the host of the podcast The Dana Gould Hour.

Caren Zucker is a Peabody award-winning television news producer, a twenty-five-year veteran of ABC News, and producer and co-writer of the six-part PBS series ¡§Autism Now.¡¨

John Donvan is a multiple Emmy Award-winning correspondent for ABC and the moderator of the Intelligence Squared U.S. debate series.

About the radio shows/podcasts
The OK Show is a podcast created by Local Show host Andrea Swensson. In each episode, Swensson interviews a local musician about their approach to wellness.

The Hilarious World of Depression tries to understand the mysterious connection between comedy and despair by sharing the struggles and triumphs of the people who make us laugh. In this podcast series, to be launched later this year, host John Moe will interview some of the top names in comedy who also have intimate knowledge of the disease of clinical depression. The show is for anyone who has dealt with clinical depression, anyone who loves someone who has dealt with it, and comedy fans in general.

MPR News with Tom Weber, heard weekdays at 11 a.m. on KNOW 91.1 FM and statewide on the MPR News network, focuses on all things Minnesota, from the latest headlines to the long-standing issues that define the state, to the quirky people who make this an interesting place to live. About the Minneapolis Institute of Art Home to more than 89,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) inspires wonder, spurs creativity, and nourishes the imagination. With extraordinary exhibitions and one of the finest wide-ranging art collections in the country¡XRembrandt to van Gogh, Monet to Matisse, Asian to African¡XMia links the past to the present, enables global conversations, and offers an exceptional setting for inspiration. General admission to Mia is always free. Some special exhibitions have a nominal admission fee.