BAC Wellness Studio Resources
BAC Wellness Studio is a platform for art, resources, and training at the intersection of wellness and creativity. Listed on this page are resources, training opportunities, and creative art projects and programs centered on Brooklyn’s wellness-focused creative community.
Below you can find an ongoing list of:
affordable care providers or affordable insurance providers
freelancer collectives and unions
artist projects and presentations by other organizations and galleries that are beneficial to the well-being of Brooklyn audiences
organizations and space resources where arts wellness programs are available to community and can be hosted
We hope that these resources serve to:
connect artists to community health resources
connect Brooklyn’s creative community to artists services and content that supports community wellbeing
uncover and help artists enter career pathways in wellness to diversify their incomes
build community, validation, and affirmation to address and combat mental health issues, such as: isolation, anxiety, and depression
advocate for the role art can play in healthy societies, especially during and post-pandemic
Resources
Dr. Brown has been a doctor of chiropractic, chiropractic sports physician, clinical nutritionist, yoga instructor, and personal trainer for over 30 years. Drawing on all of these areas of expertise, he takes an integrative approach to wellness to help his patients boost their vitality and extend their life expectancy via offering wellness, exercise, education, and community classes.
Affordable Health Insurance: How to Qualify and Apply for Medicaid
For many families navigating our healthcare Medicaid system can feel overwhelming, especially if English is not the natively spoken language. As a resource center, Affordable Health Insurance is working diligently to make Medicaid accessible to all by eliminating issues cause by language barrier.
Artists Health Insurance Resource Center: Entertainment Community Fund
The Artists Health Insurance Resource Center is a national healthcare directory that provides health care resources for artists, performers, freelancers and the self-employed.
The Author League Fund provides funds to professional writers in need because of medical or health-related problems, temporary loss of income, or other misfortune.
Center for the Performing Artist
Center for the Performing Artist at NewYork-Presbyterian supports the physical and mental health of artists through comprehensive and integrated services.
A Black trans led community garden in Bedstuy, Brooklyn for Black trans/non-binary, agender, and queer people.
At HealHaus you’ll find an unique escape in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn that is a joint wellness space and cafe. Their space is designed to inspire community while providing an accessible and fresh approach to the wellness aesthetic.
Khadija Tudor and Ade Collman created the Life Wellness Center on a mission to spark awareness about health, self-love, and how we care for our bodies. That mission has been at the core of the services they provide such as massages, acupuncture, chiropractic, and wellness products.
MAUSA, located on the border of Prospect Heights and Crown Heights, offers classes in jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai, aikido, cardio kickboxing, and yoga.
Mount Sinai: The Louis Armstrong Department of Music Therapy
The Louis Armstrong Department of Music Therapy provides daily music therapy sessions with patients receiving care at Mount Sinai.
The NYC Health Insurance Link is a guide that provides individuals with a comprehensive list of available health insurance plans.
NYC Health + Hospitals: Healing Through Art (Blog)
Healing Through Art is a blog from NYC Health + Hospitals highlighting stories about the importance and intricate ties of healing and arts.
NYC Well provides free confidential crisis counseling and peer support via call, text and chat in over 200 languages regardless of insurance or immigration status.
The New York Foundation for the Arts has a running list of additional emergency grant opportunities for artists, categorized by disciplines.
NYSCA Rauschenberg Medical Emergency Grants
This program provides one-time grants of up to $5,000 for recent unexpected medical, dental, and mental health emergencies to artists in financial need who are creating in the visual arts, film/video/electronic/digital arts, and choreography.
Renew'd Studio of Wellness Arts
Renew’d utilizes a multi-faceted model of movement and wellness activities, integrating three essential components: Yoga, healthy cooking, and the three energetic activities, music, art and drumming. They use these activities to open up and unblock the brain in developing new life strategies for dealing with the stresses of life.
Sacred Vibes Apothecary is a place of connection in our community, where the important work of spiritual and physical health is explored through the lenses of social and racial justice. Sacred Vibes uses plants to connect you deeply to your roots and to expand your vision towards what wholeness can mean for you.
Spiked Spin offers spin classes, pilates, yoga, wellness education courses, monthly mental wellness sessions with licensed therapists and psychologists, and nutrition resources and guides. This expanded wellness menu offers Black women and allies the ability to take hold of the health journey and prioritize progress over perfection.
A resource for reliable, compassionate, and up-to-date information on the mental health topics including a 5,500 article library of curated, comprehensive information on mental health and psychology topics.
Training & Opportunities
BAC Wellness Studio is passionate about sharing content for creatives interested in career development opportunities that blend art skills with healing modalities. Apart from our professional development series, on this page is an ongoing list of training opportunities available to creatives by Brooklyn institutions. Below you will find: certification and professional development opportunities available at Brooklyn institutions as well as podcasts available to creatives on developing their practice centered on healing.
28Muses focuses exclusively on building human connection through wonder and play for corporate teams and brands, with an expertise on creative experiences that are inclusive and transformative. They offer wellness workshops for NYC in person and virutally.
Each year this program gathers thousands of pioneers from across the USA and around the world to address and tackle challenges that affect the people of African descent such as wellness in the workplace, while providing career insights. The Theme for 2022 is “Creating an Inclusive Reality: How to Live, Work, and Build in the Metaverse”.
Birth Day Presence provides workshops for people that are beginning their path to becoming a doula. They host virtual classes and workshops covered by most HSA, FSA, and HRA plans.
The Black Movement Library provides UTP workshops (Understanding, Transforming, and Preserving Movement in Digital Spaces) to learn about Extended Reality tools in relationship to race, gender, and culture. This workshop explores the technical aspects of incorporating wellness within the digital arts spheres tackling issues such as cultural exploitation through performance.
Brain Power Wellness (BPW) is a holistic wellness company based in NYC. BPW teaches physical and mental brain breaks, mindfulness practices, and social emotional wellness strategies that support a positive classroom atmosphere. They partner with teachers, students, parents, and administrators to create a sustainable, healthy, happy, and focused school environment.
Brooklyn Music School: Music Therapy Classes
The Brooklyn Music School’s Music Therapy Department has a team of therapists and facilitators who offer private and group, in-person and online programs, and conduct community outreach, to promote healing, connectivity, expression, and growth through music.
Brooklyn Psychedelic Society’s mission is to make psychedelic healing publicly accessible through community, education, democratic ownership, and advocacy. They host wellness workshops in person such as Shamanic Breathwork with Rob Heffernan .
The Creative Center provides free art workshops for people with cancer and chronic illnesses, an online gallery representing professional artists living with illness, and a training program to expand their work across the U.S.
The Institute for the Development of Human Arts
This Institute for the Development of Human Arts offers a series of courses, facilitated by mental health workers, educators, activists, artists, and survivors, focused on healing strategies.
Kiire Wellness is a Black, POC, LGBTQIA+ centered space for wellness grounded in African Diaspora Tradition. Kiire Wellness offers certificate programs for Orisha Ceremonial traditions such as practitioner training, teacher training, as well as singing and dance classes.
LEAP provides educational arts programs to promote access and equity for underserved students and inspire students to develop their creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking skills.
MINKA offers "corporate wellness" programs focused on providing opportunities for staff members of organizations to integrate wellness practices into their daily work flow. They create space to de-stress, opportunities for self care, and offer tools to recharge and support a positive and effective work environment.
MoMa: The Healing Power of Art
MoMa: The Healing Power of Art includes meditations, reflections, and somatic exercises around art and well-being.
NeuroArts Blueprint: The Science of Arts, Health and Well-Being
The NeuroArts Blueprint: The Science of Arts, Health and Well-Being is an initiative aiming to expand the field of neuroarts – an emerging transdisciplinary study of how the arts and aesthetic experiences change the body, brain, and behavior, and translating this knowledge to advance health and wellbeing around the world.
RiseBoro Community Partnership is providing North Brooklyn residents the tools and education they need to address social determinants of health through Wellness Rising, a suite of diverse, community-based health and wellness programs. Their programs specifically provide support around food access, asthma, and referrals to social services to reduce other barriers to our clients’ best health.
Three Sisters Yoga offers yoga teacher certification programs through 200-300 hour training programs, continuing education workshops, and classes. They provide scholarships, discounts, and work trade opportunities specifically aiming at diversity, equity, inclusion, LGBTQIA, and Veterans interested in learning to teach yoga.
World Health Organization (WHO): Arts and Health
The World Health Organization is working towards making art and health a permanent part of its program by testing arts interventions to advance specific health goals, collaborating with media companies to provide local-language programming on health issues, and continuing research on the effects of art in health.
Organizations
Ancient Song is a national birth justice organization working to eliminate maternal and infant mortality and morbidity among Black and Latinx people. Ancient Song provides doula training and services, offer community education, and advocate for policy change to support reproductive and birth justice.
Art Start is a nonprofit in NYC whose goal is to nurture the voices, hearts, and minds of at-risk historically marginalized youth by offering a space for them to represent their creative vision for their lives and communities.
The Art Therapy Project is a nonprofit mental health organization providing free group art therapy to adults and youth affected by trauma.
Art Therapy Place provides individual art therapy sessions, group workshops, and art exhibitions in Bushwick to support members and facilitate healing.
Backline is a nonprofit organization that works with musicians and artists to connect them and their families with mental health and wellness resources, including support groups and free subscriptions to telehealth apps.
Brooklyn Supported Agriculture
Brooklyn Supported Agriculture brings NYC fresh produce from independent farmers, foragers, and makers with delivery and pickup in Brooklyn and Queens.
The Central Brooklyn Food Coop is a working-member owned and operated food store with membership open to all. Their mission is to utilize collective strength to ensure access to affordable and fresh food while centering the Black, low-to-moderate-income communities of Central Brooklyn.
Creative Therapies NYC provides psychotherapy for individuals of all ages, designed to meet the needs of individuals through innovative creative arts therapy techniques including talking, visual arts and/or movement.
Homeroom Collective a is a community and multidisciplinary platform for female identifying & LGBTQ+ creatives to connect and grow by investing in artistry and well-being. They hold pop up events in New York and LA and frequently utilize their blog to engage with artist communities surrounding issues such as Practicing Financial Wellness.
Institute for the Development of Human Arts
Institute for the Development of Human Arts are a group of mental health professionals, advocates, and artists, who explore the link between personal and societal transformation.
The International Arts + Mind Lab (IAM Lab)
The International Arts + Mind Lab (IAM Lab) is a research-to-practice initiative pioneering impact-based thinking, an outside-in approach to solve intractable problems in health, well-being, and learning through the arts.
Lavender Blues is an intimate music and movement session for babies and toddlers where kids develop an understanding of rhythm and music, build awareness, and control of their body as well as develop social and coordination skill.
Musicians On Call brings live and recorded music to the bedsides of patients in healthcare facilities.
Mural Arts Project aims to destigmatize mental illness, while enhancing the physical environment in New York City.
Music That Heals brings live, professional, musical performances to ill children and adults in various healthcare facilities. The program was co-founded in 1997 by musicians Kathy Lord and Susan Weber.
New York Creative Arts Therapists
New York Creative Arts Therapists trains new therapists and provides comprehensive creative arts therapy services to adults, children, families and agencies in New York.
NYU Creative Arts Therapies Consortium
The NYU Creative Arts Therapies Consortium leads an international alliance of seven universities to advance research and public knowledge of the benefits of the arts and its ties to health, care, and wellbeing.
Rehabilitation Through The Arts
Rehabilitation Through The Arts provides people in prison with creative arts programs, using the arts as a tool for social and cognitive transformation.
Thrive Collective presents Arts of Healing Festival
The Art of Healing Festival and this community are shining examples of how all New Yorkers can create safe and flourishing communities where neighbors can grow, heal,
and express themselves.
Powerhouse Arts is a nonprofit organization that hosts classes, partnerships, and a network of art and fabrication professionals and educators who collaborate to co-create and share artistic practices vital to the wellbeing of artists and their communities.
process in a therapy session to access emotions that are often difficult to verbalize. (Facebook)
SEEDS Brooklyn is a quality, home concert-performance space located in the heart of Prospect Heights. This space incorporates wellness in their mission by offering musicians and artists a safe environment to present their work in an intimate and respectful setting.
We Run Kings (TeamWRK) provides essential tools and training techniques to encourage non-runners and athletes alike to conquer long distance running events from one mile to marathon distance.