The Healing Arts Initative was a nonprofit active in the New York City area from the late 1960s through the 2010s that provided arts workshops and studio space and resources to people with severe mental illness and/or developmental disability with a history of institutionalization. From the 1970s-2010s, the HAI maintained what they referred to as an "archive" of artworks created by members in workshops hosted in mental healthcare institutions or as part of the studio program. The records are mostly artworks on paper created in a variety of mediums, from painting to drawing to collage. In our presentation, we provide a brief overview of the collection, grant project, and processing approach before centering our talk on the unique strengths and challenges associated with incorporating community voices in archival processing. We discuss the research, outreach, and ethics components of working with materials from underrepresented artists in the disability arts community. We also address the challenges related to tackling a large-scale grant project with limited resources.
Faber et al. (Wed,) studied this question.