SYMBIOSIS

The Wild Medicine mural portrait installation at Penn OB/GYN is a pilot piece for The Women’s Wild Medicine Initiative. This project has been in the making for years, as it draws from work dating back to 2016, exploring women’s empowerment captured in naturalistically embodied portrait paintings. This mural project serves to highlight the ancient ancestral connection between women and the wild medicines of their cultural roots.

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Women’s history is woven together with plants and the healing arts. In virtually every culture, women maintained knowledge of herbal healing for the prevention and treatment of maladies that afflicted their communities. In recognition of this history, Hagopian Arts presents Women’s Wild Medicine, a series within our Wild Medicine Eco Mural Project, that explores cultural heritage through medicinal plants - murals depicting women of diverse cultural backgrounds juxtaposed with patterning and flora reflecting the Wild Medicine of their origins.

 

Both traditional holistic healing and modern Western medicine are significant and complementary approaches to well-being. While traditional healing focuses on treating individuals as a whole, and addressing the root of an issue, modern Western medicine relies on scientific research and procedures to treat specific symptoms or diseases. While these two approaches may seem to be at odds with each other, they can actually work together in a complementary way. By combining the two approaches, a comprehensive and balanced perspective on healing can be achieved. 

 

Many people today have lost sight of both their connection to nature and the benefits of holistic awareness, lacking the understanding that the body itself is an ecosystem. Personal autonomy is what works on an individual level, empowered by the awareness of connection to nature and scientific advancement. The Women’s Wild Medicine series highlights the importance of our connection to nature on an individual level. This connection is uniquely explored in each piece through the lens of personal heritage, celebrating both individuality and cultural diversity. 

 

The Women’s Wild Medicine Project expands on work within the ongoing Eco Mural Series and Wild Medicine Projects, murals designed to celebrate native medicinal flora and inspire citizen engagement with the natural ecosystem.  Eco Mural 15, the first in the Wild Medicine series, centers on local flora that provide medicinal benefits and sustenance. Women’s Wild Medicine explores cultural heritage through medicinal plants - murals depicting women of diverse cultural backgrounds juxtaposed with patterning and flora reflecting the Wild Medicine of their origins.

 

The first phase of the Wild Medicine project established a framework of events, partnerships, and educational elements that will be built upon for the Women’s Wild Medicine mural series. Through therapeutic, educational, art-making, and herbalism workshops, women will explore their creative self-expression, developing their personal narratives as they delve into a range of themes - cultural heritage through medicinal plant exploration, environmental sustainability, women-led local urban farming and botany, along with guided creative writing and art-making workshops. The Women's Wild Medicine Project truly speaks to the journey of self-awareness through driven exploration that is so vital to being an empowered woman within our society, and our environment.

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View our Wild Medicine Eco Mural Project and Wild Medicine: A Multidimensional Experience to learn more about natural medicinal flora.