Reflections from the 8th Annual Peace & Justice Institute Conference: Creating a Resilient Community: Arts for Thriving!
I had the honor of giving the lunch keynote address today at the 8th Annual Peace & Justice Institute Conference — and I left the room more convinced than ever that this work matters.
What struck me most wasn’t just the ideas in my own remarks. It was the room itself. Scientists, artists, educators, non profit leaders, advocates — all gathered around one shared belief: that resilience isn’t something that just happens to us. It’s something we build, together, on purpose.
I want to share some of what I said today, because I think it belongs here too.
Resilience Is Something We Cultivate — Together
Many of the conference participants have been engaging with Your Brain on Art, and what that research makes so clear — what many of us have long felt intuitively — is that creative experiences don’t just inspire us.
They change us.
Biologically. Emotionally. Socially.
Art regulates the nervous system. It expands empathy. It helps us process stress and reconnect with meaning. And in a time when so many people feel overwhelmed, disconnected, and uncertain — that matters deeply.
Here’s what I’ve observed: when people feel overwhelmed, they narrow. When they feel unseen, they disconnect. When they lose a sense of belonging, they lose a sense of possibility.
Art interrupts that.
It widens us again. It restores our ability to connect, to imagine, to participate. For those of us engaged in justice work, that’s not a footnote — it’s the foundation.
What I See Across Florida
In my role as Chair of the Florida Council on Arts & Culture, I serve on the advocacy arm of the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs and work at the state level for the funding of the Florida Cultural Museum Matching Grant Program.
What I see, across this state, is a clear pattern: where there is investment in the arts, communities are stronger. Where there is not, the gaps are real — and they are felt.
Let me make that tangible.
Picture the murals in Parramore or Eatonville — bold, vibrant, unmistakably alive. What they’re doing on the surface is beautiful. What they’re doing underneath is profound. They are a statement of identity and dignity. They carry history, legacy, and cultural pride across generations. They say: your story matters. You belong here.
That is dignity made visible.
Or think about what happens at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts — a space dedicated to inclusive, diverse, and accessible arts — where a room full of strangers laughs at the same moment, holds their breath at the same moment, and becomes, even briefly, a community.
Or the Rollins Museum of Art, where people are invited to slow down, reflect, and sit with complexity in a world that rarely allows it.
Across Central Florida, I see it again and again: art creating connection, connection reinforcing dignity, dignity building resilience.
Art Is Also Good Business
I know that some conversations about the arts get dismissed as idealistic. So let me add the economic argument, because it’s just as compelling.
The Winter Park Chamber’s Art is Good Business initiative is built on this fact: for every $1 Florida invests in the arts, there is a $9 return to the economy.
This is not just a moral argument. It’s not just a community argument. It’s an economic strategy.
The arts support mental health. They strengthen education. They build the neurological capacity for dialogue and resilience. These experiences are not “extra.” They are infrastructure.
So when we advocate for arts funding, we are not asking for decoration. We are advocating for community resilience. When we protect creative spaces, we are protecting the conditions that allow empathy and nonviolence to grow. When we embed art into schools, healthcare, and civic life, we are investing in long-term stability.
An Invitation to Keep Advocating — Boldly
I ended my remarks today with an invitation, and I want to extend it here as well.
Let’s continue to advocate for the arts boldly — not as a luxury, but as infrastructure for peace. Let’s design policy that recognizes beauty as a public good. And let’s remember that when we create space for art, we create space for people to reconnect with their own humanity and with one another.
In a fractured time, that may be one of the most important forms of justice work we can do.
If we want people to feel like they belong, we have to invest in the very things that remind them they do.
Art is not a luxury. It’s the infrastructure of a resilient community.
Thank you to the Peace & Justice Institute for the invitation and for creating a convening where science, spirit, and community work happen together. It is exactly the kind of space the world needs more of.
— promotionalGal