Launched in May, The Hmong Institute and the Wisconsin Women’s Council’s Resiliency: Hmong Women’s Mental Health Journeys During the COVID-19 Pandemic exhibit made its way to Eau Claire at the end of June. The Hmong women’s story cloth exhibit is on display at the Pablo Center at the Confluence on third floor in the Orgel Wealth Management Atrium now through July 21, 2023. The Atrium is open to the public 10:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. Monday thru Friday or one hour before theatre events.
Resiliency: Hmong Women’s Mental Health Journeys During the COVID-19 Pandemic features three story cloth quilt panels that were the culmination of an ethnographic and art therapy project led by The Hmong Institute and the Wisconsin Women’s Council. In spring 2022, the two organizations started a project to better understand the experiences of elder Hmong women during the COVID-19 global pandemic. The project engaged participants of an ongoing women’s group, Hmong Sisterhood Support Group, at The Hmong Institute’s community center to discuss and process the impacts of grief, stress, and isolation experienced during the pandemic on their mental health and well-being and capture their experiences and stories through a traditional means of documenting the Hmong experience and history by creating ‘story cloths‘.
Through the project’s discussions and story cloth creation, three themes emerged as the participants’ primary sources of strength and resiliency: their Hmong families and community, spirituality/faith, and gardening or being outdoors. The exhibit also features a poster with a QR code to link viewers to an online video of interviews with the women who created the story cloths as they share some of their experiences during the pandemic. The video development was funded in part by the Wisconsin Humanities.
