Art for Healing and Social Change

Since it was founded in the 90s, MUA has always used art and cultural work as a fundamental component of social change. Incorporating arts and culture into our work helps us find our voices, celebrate and reclaim pride in our ancestral cultures, overcome trauma and internalized racism, and bring creativity and fun to every area of ​​our work. 

In the early 1990s, MUA collaborated with sister organizations to produce plays on street corners and public spaces in San Francisco on topics such as what to do in the event of an immigration raid, the reality of domestic violence and destigmatizing HIV/AIDS. To this day, MUA continues to use theater as a tool to raise our voices on topics where there is still a 'taboo' and demand changes in our society. 

MUA has also always incorporated cultural practices into our work, including celebrating traditional Latin American holidays in ways that advance our mission, such as the annual
Dia de los Muertos celebration to honor those we have lost, traditional dance and music projects, a Children's Day celebration to enjoy and center children in our lives, and an annual dance party coinciding with the celebration of Mexico and Central America's independence from colonialism. More recently, MUA has worked with healers to incorporate ancient healing practices into our staff and member retreats, including dance (ritual dancing and drumming), altars to Mother Earth, and herbal 'cleanses'. 

MUA has hosted writing and poetry workshops as a form of healing and expression for members, and for over 10 years held an annual reading event with a group of well-known local women writers. In 2019, Las Malcriadas, a writing group that emerged from an MUA writing workshop, published a bilingual book of their works: Magical Women: Domestic Workers' Right to Write, in collaboration with Freedom Voices, Reimagine: Movements Making Media and the National Domestic Workers Alliance.  You can order your copy of this powerful work here.

In 2016, MUA began collaborating with NAKA Dance Theater, an art collaboration founded by Debby Kajiyama and José Navarrete that combines dance, somatic and expressive arts with ancient healing practices. They have collaborated with MUA on multiple theater productions, including:  For those who are no longer with us: a poetic action against feminicide y ¡Ya Basta!, both works based on the experiences and dreams of our members. NAKA and Boom Shake Music have also collaborated with MUA to bring drumming, singing and dancing to our protest marches, as a way to celebrate our power as women.

A NAKA artist, Violeta Luna, developed an arts-based somatic healing manual for meeting facilitators at MUA, and worked closely with our sexual assault survivor support group to develop scripts based on her experiences. vivid for two short videos used. These videos were used for social media outreach: 

Video: You are not alone

Video: Your fight is my fight

Before and during the COVID19 pandemic, NAKA Dance Theater brought guest presenters to MUA general meetings to teach somatics, dance, ancestral herbal healing and other art and healing practices. Lead members also collaborated with NAKA artists to create circles of mutual aid and learning, supporting each other to incorporate textile art, drawing, collage, weaving and quilting as group practices of healing and sharing. In 2020, the learning groups produced a beautiful and moving video of their work, T-shirts. 

In 2022, the NAKA-MUA learning groups produced a new joint theater production and a photonovela 'photonovel' of their works of visual art. These works were also displayed in an art exhibition at the Richmond Art Center, which also provided space for MUA members to give a series of art workshops. The learning groups also launched a series of weaving workshops led by indigenous Mayan Mam women. Here you can see the PDF of the Fotonovela online.