AROBA: A Room Of Black Artists in association with Workman Arts brings to you a Black Mental Health Symposium and Action Event. It is the first of an annual symposium that promotes Black mental wellness in the arts community. AROBA advocates wellness in Black communities by increasing awareness and reducing stigma around Black mental health issues. In this first symposium, AROBA will facilitate discussions around anxiety and depression experiences that Black Artists face as they navigate their lives and careers in the arts sector as a whole.

A series of peer-based trauma-informed discussions with Black artists explore critical paths to healthier realities, not limited to:

• Black artists moving beyond trauma within their art practice and life
• Discussion about the arts increasing public awareness of anti-Black racism, anxiety and depression.
• Navigating the ways that microassaults, microaggressions, and microinvalidations lead to anxiety, depression, and impacts work
• Artists accessing mental health counselling and education to support their wellbeing and creative output
• Confronting anti-Black racism and its impact on mental wellness within Black communities
• Black artists’ creation for their community, that reduces the stigmatization of mental illness.