In partnership with Art with a Heart in Healthcare (AWAHIH), the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) has announced its new exhibitions, “Daydreamers”. The exhibition will be on view Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023 through Sunday, Jan. 14, 2024. The opening reception will be held at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 17. The event is free, family-friendly, and open to the public. “Daydreamers” features the work of 20 young people ranging in age from eight years old to 19 years of age who are patients at Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville, FL. Imagining themselves in a myriad of ways, from majestic creatures to mighty warriors, patient artists answered the question: "Where does your mind wander when you daydream?"

For more than a decade, MOCA Jacksonville has partnered with Art with a Heart in Healthcare, a nonprofit organization that provides personalized art experiences to enhance the healing process for patients and families in local healthcare settings. Each patient and AWAHIH Artists-in-Residence work together to celebrate and explore the artistic process. AWAHIH creates an opportunity for participants to share who they are as a whole person rather than one who is defined by diagnosis, age, or disability.

Patients and their families also learn technical art-making and creative skills while gaining self-confidence and self-awareness in the process.

This year’s artists-in-residence are Dylan Bauer, Kianna Godoy, Jaycee Guttormson, Amy Irizarry, Brooke McKinney, Lisa Miyares, Matt Richards, Abigail Santos, and Micaela Yates.

Since its founding in 2001, AWAHIH has provided more than 125,000 patients and their families with fine art sessions at the bedside or in groups at several locations in Jacksonville, Florida including Wolfson Children’s Hospital, Nemours Children’s Health, St. Vincent’s Riverside, Baptist Medical Center, Mayo Clinic, and Baptist Health MD Anderson.

The exhibition is sponsored by the Florida Blue Foundation with ongoing support from the City of Jacksonville, the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville, and the University of North Florida, and is also sponsored in part by the State of Florida through the Division of Arts and Culture and the National Endowment for the Arts.

For more information visit https://mocajacksonville.unf.edu/exhibitions/education-gallery/awah-daydreamers.html

Photos: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3cbhywiul7sy7s5/AABD_KLoZAQedhaICX8j-nLTa?dl=0

Art With a Heart in Healthcare (AWAHIH) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to providing fine art experiences in a hospital setting to enhance the healing process for patients and their families.