Healing Through Art

Join our weekly Healing Through Art program and experience guided activities that utilize the creative processes of art therapy, helping you to explore self-expression and discover new personal insights.

Creative expression has been cited as a powerful way to connect with the self, alleviate stress, and find inspiration. In this collaboration with New York University’s Steinhardt Graduate School of Art Therapy, graduate students will guide visitors in creative art-making exercises designed to encourage self reflection and discovery. Presented in conjunction with our current exhibitions and our 2023 theme of Life After, visitors will have the opportunity to reflect on ideas of transition, impermanence, and the unknown.

Healing Through Art is a free drop-in program and advanced registration is encouraged. Registration for the program does not include admission for the galleries. Gallery ticket holders can join the program by signing up at one of the activity tables in the museum lobby . Visitors are not required to purchase a gallery ticket to participate. To reserve a program ticket or a program ticket plus gallery admission, please select from the options on the right. Museum Members must reserve their program ticket and gallery admission ticket separately to receive free admission to the galleries.

New York University (NYU) Program Coordinators

Rohita Kilachand, MA, ATR-BC, LCAT

Rohita Kilachand is a board-certified art therapist and educator with more than twelve years of experience working in the development sector, in India and internationally. She has been actively involved in NYU’s Graduate Art Therapy Program as a faculty member and associate research scientist. Rohita is the clinical supervisor for community outreach programs at NYU and her area of expertise includes clinical practice with children and adults, displaced populations and individuals living with neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s Disease and Multiple Sclerosis. Another area of her work focuses on cross-cultural art therapy initiatives in international settings. She works with the World Bank Group to develop mental health and education-based programming for refugee populations.

Ikuko Acosta, PhD, ATR-BC, LCAT

Director Emeritus of the Graduate Art Therapy Program at New York University, Ikuko has been involved in the field of art therapy for the past 38 years as an art therapist and art theory educator. Her clinical expertise is with the adult psychiatric population; she worked with a diagnostic team in the admissions unit in a county psychiatric hospital in New Jersey. Her main research interest is developing an aesthetically based pictorial analysis within a framework of psychodynamic approach. Ikuko has been active in promoting cross-cultural application of art therapy worldwide, and has been presenting and teaching in more than 20 countries over the past 25 years. Her most recent funded research, a collaboration with the Parkinson’s unit at NYU Langone Medical Center, focused on the impact of creative experience on people with Parkinson’s disease.

Marygrace Berberian, MA, ATR-BC, LCAT, LCSW, Program Director

Marygrace is a licensed art therapist and clinical social worker. She has established school-based art therapy initiatives throughout New York City for at-risk children and families for over 20 years. In her current position, Marygrace is the Director of NYU Art Therapy in the Schools program implementing programs for diverse communities. She has trained clinicians of other disciplines, advocating for the use of the creative arts therapies as a highly effective treatment modality. She formerly developed and directed the creative arts therapy programs at several community-based agencies, working with children and adolescents at risk, formerly homeless and mentally ill adults, and survivors of cancer.

Lead support for the Rubin Museum is provided by the Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, Bob and Lois Baylis, Barbara Bowman, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, Noah P. Dorsky, Fred Eychaner, Christopher J. Fussner, Agnes Gund, The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Global, the Estate of Lisina M. Hoch, Henry Luce Foundation, The Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Matt and Ann Nimetz, The Randleigh Foundation Trust, Shelley and Donald Rubin, Tiger Baron Foundation, and Ellen Bayard Weedon Foundation.

General operating support of the Rubin Museum of Art is provided by Daphne Hoch Cunningham and John Cunningham, Anne E. Delaney, Dalio Philanthropies, Janet Gardner, Dan Gimbel of NEPC, Inc., Gerry Ohrstrom, The Prospect Hill Foundation, Basha Rubin and Scott Grinsell, Namita and Arun Saraf, Linda Schejola, Eric and Alexandra Schoenberg, Eileen Caulfield Schwab, Jesse Smith and Annice Kenan, Tsherin Sherpa, Tong-Tong Zhu and Jianing Liu, with generous donations from the Museum’s Board of Trustees, individual donors and members, and corporate and foundation supporters.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

The Rubin Museum’s programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.

Image Credit: Photograph by Filip Wolak, Rubin Museum of Art, 2022