Engage with Ana Mendieta’s film Fundamendo de Palo Monte: Silueta Series (Gunpowder Works) in a deeper way during “Gallery Flow,” a free workshop where you are invited to explore the idea of home and belonging, and your relationship to the earth. You will view the film with others and then be led through yoga exercises to synchronize your mind and body before proceeding into a story-circle discussion facilitated by teaching artists and a Museum educator. The discussion will be guided by prompts relating to Mendieta’s work.
Finally, you will create your own silueta—a tracing of your body on paper—and infuse it with your reflections on Fundamendo de Palo Monte and the following conversations by drawing, collaging, and weaving materials into your tracing. Throughout the program you will gain a deeper understanding of Mendieta’s work and the relationship among art, mental health, and wellness while practicing mindfulness techniques.
Reserve your place for Sunday, June 15, HERE.
Reserve your place for Sunday, July 13: HERE.
Meet the Facilitators:
Karen Vasquez
Karen Vasquez: Karen is a Mexican American pro liberation community yoga teacher, certified sound therapy practitioner, and nature lover. Her practice is inspired by nature, honoring indigenous wisdom, and looking to the cycles and rhythms of the earth to guide our healing journeys. She brings a holistic approach to her classes fostering collective wellness through intention, breath, meditation, movement, and sound.
Erica Simmons
Erica Simmons (The Mindful Child Initiative): Erica is a native of the Lehigh Valley and has been practicing yoga and mindfulness for more than twenty years, becoming a RYT 200 about five years ago. She is also a school counselor in the Allentown School District and is currently at Sheridan Elementary School. Erica has seen firsthand the power of mindfulness in the schools.
Alicen Arnold
Alicen Arnold (The Mindful Child Initiative): Alicen is a licensed professional counselor, certified five-hundred-hour yoga teacher, and mindfulness educator with more than twenty years of experience in mental health. She holds a master’s degree in Education from the University of Pittsburgh and has trained extensively with the Himalayan Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy. Her teaching blends modern psychology, yoga philosophy, movement, mindfulness, and meditation in a way that’s both powerful and approachable. Alicen enjoys creating customized programs for different groups and settings. Her goal is to help people of all ages find calm and balance—even in challenging times—through breath, awareness, and gentle movement.
Nia Watson
Nia Watson: Mama, artist, grower, and community educator. Student to life and the earth. Nia has been offering diverse classes to the valley for the past decade. She brings a unique variety of teaching techniques, weaving together early childhood, yoga, and mindfulness. More recently, she has been sharing from her studies of herbalism and traditional birth work. She looks forward to meeting you and sharing stories!
Rei Ukon
Rei Ukon (Allentown Art Museum): Rei Ukon is a multidisciplinary artist based in Bethlehem, on unceded Lenape land. Their work explores memory, emotion, and nostalgia through family archives, history, and childhood experiences split between New York and Yokohama, Japan. Rei focuses on themes like home, community, belonging, and resistance, drawing connections between cultures and shared human experiences. As a teaching artist, Rei creates spaces where people can connect, reflect, and express themselves through art. They are passionate about art’s role in community care, healing, and resilience.
Vicky Conte
Vicky Conte: Vicky Conte is the director of community-based mental health programs at Pinebrook Family Answers in Allentown. She has fifteen years of experience in mental health services and more than thirteen years leading person-centered programs in the Lehigh Valley. Vicky is passionate about trauma awareness and regularly trains local agencies in trauma-informed care and vicarious trauma. She holds a fifty-hour trauma certification from Drexel University and is a certified trauma-informed agency trainer. She earned her BFA from St. John’s University in Queens, NY, and is currently pursuing a master’s in art therapy at Cedar Crest College. This path has also led her to facilitate workshops as a teaching artist.
About our collaborating organizations:
The Mindful Child Initiative: The Mindful Child Initiative (MCI) provides high-quality mindfulness programs promoting the mental and emotional health of children, and the adults who support them, across the Lehigh Valley. MCI provides mindfulness education to the K-5 students and staff of the Allentown School District throughout the school year, at no cost to the school district. MCI also provides reasonably priced mindfulness and yoga services to those beyond ASD.
Ripple Community Inc: RCI is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that was established in 2015. The organization is guided by a vision of Allentown as a community where everyone has a role to play, a diverse network of social support, and a connection to the place they call home. Ripple programs serve more than 150 Allentown residents, including people experiencing homelessness or housing instability, people who are socially isolated, people living with significant histories of trauma and mental illness, and the working poor. For neighbors living with challenges like these, RCI is a source of friendship, support, and community.
SELF! Lehigh Valley: SELF! provides vital programs and services for women reentering the community after incarceration and other traumatic circumstances. SELF!’s objective is to coach women in achieving and maintaining a safe and productive lifestyle, contribute to their communities economically, and cultivate a mindset that allows for all women to flourish as they continue to become their true SELF.