If you were fortunate enough to watch the Millennium Stage event with Renee Fleming, last October, Arts & Wellness with NeuroArts Blueprint, featuring Dr. David Olawuyi Fakunle, you’ll be eager to continue the conversation about how important the arts are to our physical and mental health.  Join Dr. David Fakunle as he guides participants on an exploration through the world of arts, culture and health. Look forward to learning about the science that explains the impact of creative expressions on health and wellbeing, including David's personal and professional experiences utilizing storytelling as a multidisciplinary method for understanding and embracing the human experience.

David Olawuyi Fakunle, Ph.D. is a “mercenary for change,” employing the necessary skills and occupying the necessary spaces to help strengthen everyone divested from their truest self, particularly those who identify as Black, Indigenous and/or a Person of Color. David serves as Assistant Professor of Public and Allied Health at the Morgan State University School of Community Health & Policy, Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine, and Associate Faculty in Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. David’s interests include stressors within the built environment, manifestations of systemic oppression, and the utilization of arts and culture to cultivate holistic health through humanity, justice, equity and ultimately, liberation.

David earned his B.A. from the University of Maryland, College Park, and his Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. 

Additionally, David has applied artistic and cultural practices such as Black storytelling, African drumming, singing and theater in the proclamation of truth for over 25 years, collaborating primarily with organizations in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. region. Among many affiliations, David is co-founder and CEO of DiscoverME/RecoverME, an organization that utilizes the African oral tradition to empower use of storytelling for healing and growth, previously served as Executive Director of WombWork Productions, a Baltimore-based social change performing arts company, and serves as Chair of the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the first state-level commission in the U.S. dedicated to chronicling and bringing justice to racial terror lynchings. 

Wednesday | March 20 | 11 a.m. to noon | via Zoom

Register at https://smh.memberclicks.net/2024StorytellingArtWellnessSSA

Or email [email protected] or call 202-364-7602.