My name is Jenna Shira Green (she/her)

I am a contemplative artist and scholar, museum educator, and interdisciplinary arts (in health) researcher.

My passion is exploring the intersection of art, wellness, and education through individual, and community-based programs. My goal is to integrate art, sensory awareness, and embodiment into art spaces to promote connection.

I weave in and out of academia. Currently I am a PhD Candidate in Art and Visual Culture Education at the University of Arizona and teach undergraduate art education courses. Outside academia, I am the Program Manager - Healing Arts at Tucson Medical Center (TMC) Health Foundation. TMC Health encompasses 4 hospitals, 6 cancer centers and infusion sites, and 21 clinics. In this role I manage an art collection (almost 2,400 artworks!), a community creatives program that oversee local musicians, and art education initiatives across all these sites.

Education, both formal and informal have shaped my career and passions. I received my MA in Museology in 2019 from the University of Washington, focusing on museum education, and a BA in Anthropology in 2016 from Arizona State University, focusing on social/cultural factors that influence health and wellbeing. In 2020 I began my dedicated yoga education earning an Anti-200 Hour Teacher Training Certificate from Return Yoga lead by Karin Carlson and continue to engage in yoga studies (see below).

My Values

Accessibility

There are very real economic/financial, physical, and other social boundaries that make art and yoga unavailable to many. My goal is to remove the barriers I can control and advocate for the ones I can’t.

Community

We are social beings, some more than others, and both at the heart of yoga and in art spaces, fostering meaningful relationships is crucial. They can inspire, challenge, and provide support. I seek to build braver spaces and community.

Creativity

There is a power to viewing, making, and thinking creatively. My mission is to celebrate and/or facilitate experiences that combine art (visual, written, other) reflection, and holistic wellbeing.

Exploration

Whether of places or texts, study and exploration are important for building perspective and initiating change. I value learning across lines of difference and strive to collect and share.

 

I am a white, non-disabled, cis-woman from the ancestral land of the Akimel O’Odham, Hohokam, and O’Odham Jewed, colonized today as Phoenix, Arizona. I was born a US citizen and come from a divorced middle-class family with maternal Polish Jewish roots and a paternal mix of English, Irish and Mexican Catholicism. These identities inform the way I move through the world and as a reflexive scholar, I am dedicated to investigating how each of these positions grant me access to power and resources, and ways in which I can disrupt systems of hierarchy and harm.

Degrees + Certifications

  • My research interests are in trauma-aware art museum education and the social work of museums, contemplative and embodied pedagogies, and arts in health. Each of these interests center the emotional, mental, and social impacts of art on well-being. My work is informed by the feminist philosophical ethic of care, reflexivity, and post-critical museology and is situated within qualitative and arts-based methodologies.

  • Focus on museum education and evaluation. Thesis - “Cultivating Emotional Wellbeing: Museums & Art Therapy.”

  • Focus on Medical Anthropology & Global Health.

Immersions + Trainings

  • Yoga Sutra Book Two: Personal Practice Immersion with Karin Carlson of Return Yoga, present

  • Yoga Sutra Book One: Samadhi Pada Immersion with Karin Carlson of Return Yoga, 2021-2022

  • Conscious Marketing: Justice-Focused Digital Strategies for Yoga Teachers with Tristan Katz of Accessible Yoga School, 2021

Curriculum Vitae ~ Thus Far

Click the link below to learn more about my experience.

CV

Contact Me

If you have any questions or would like to learn more, please reach out!