Miriam (they/she) is a biracial, nonbinary, disabled, and queer emerging art therapist and artist based in Chicago, IL. Before pursuing their M.A. in Art Therapy and Counseling from SAIC, they earned a B.S. in Psychology and a Pre-Art Therapy Certificate in 2021 from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). They are currently finishing their Master’s thesis, which explores the politicizing of art therapy as a means of addressing the sociopolitical underpinnings of domestic violence. Building upon previous clinical foundations in psychological oncology research, they have more recently worked as a counselor with individuals and families who have survived domestic violence at Between Friends and adults with disabilities at Access Living. An artist, art therapist, instructor, activist, and student, their work across realms is deeply interconnected and centered on liberation, intersections, empowerment, and experimentation.
Matter is the Minimum, 2023, Assorted fabrics, felt, HeatBond, and embroidery thread, 3 x 5 ft.
This piece is both a protest banner and rendition of the intersex-inclusive progress pride flag.
The Four of Me, 2021, Graphite on illustration board, 20 x 30 in.
Untitled, 2024, Wood fire clay, foraged Michigan clay, and glaze, approx. 8.5 x 18 in.
Untitled, 2024, Wood fire clay, foraged Michigan clay, flashing slip, and glaze, approx.1.5 ft tall
Feminism In Color, 2021, Silk screen prints on bristol paper, 11 x 14 in.
I am mixed Pakistani/White. I am queer. I am nonbinary. I am a creator. I am a survivor. I am disabled. These are not entities able to be compartmentalized, but interconnected ways of being that create a sense of self unique to me.
My artwork is irrevocable from the identities I hold, which simultaneously fuse with, reflect, mold, constrict, and expand one another. Imagination and intuition are at the heart of my creative practice, involving a process-oriented approach to collaborating with art material(s) as a means of re-imagining, expanding, experimenting, mending, and embodying. I perceive art mediums as pathways to explore the bounds of my subjectivity and human nature’s fragility and resilience. Recently leaning into more interdisciplinary practices, I work across the realms of painting, printmaking, ceramics, fiber arts, drawing, performance, dance, and sculpture. Each process represents a unique method of questioning our positionality and critically investigating the care we can offer ourselves and our communities. My art therapist identity expands my conceptualization of creating, centering it as a strategy to decolonize the political body and bounds of healing.
My most recent project for the 2025 Art Therapy Exhibition, a collaborative textile sculpture and dance performance piece entitled We the Helpers, is a highly experimental work that challenges the notion of a ‘helper’ and who fits its definition. Traditionally, those who work within the ‘helping professions’ are therapists, social workers, health care workers, teachers, and even law enforcement officials. As helping professionals, we are mandated to help in state-mandated ways that dictate what shapes healing is allowed to take. Yet these same systems are placing our minds, bodies, and spirits into complex and prolonged states of chaos. Together as art therapists, instructors, sex workers, artists, students, performers, workers, activists, and researchers, I collaborate with two others to explore the tactile metaphors of weaving and mending, intertwining our intuition to imagine new ways of being with ourselves and one another. It is our responsibility to imagine new ways of being and connecting to our shared humanity when our systems inevitably fail us. Best practices are born out of generalization and professionalization, but sources of care must flow from our existing strengths, resiliencies, and sources of power. This piece explores the sources we can draw from to create our own best practices, informed by the ways our experiences and resources allow us to care for one another in radical ways. We can all be the helpers.
We are not free until we are all free. Free Palestine. Free Congo. Free Sudan. Free Lebanon.
Julia Gardziel (she/her)
Instagram: @shark_therapist_
Email: juliagardziel.movement@gmail.com
Birdee (she/her)
Instagram: @bootscootinbirdee
Email: birdee.pd@gmail.com