by guest writer Kiana Karimi –
Bodies in pain resist being forgotten. When people experience deep suffering—whether due to war, displacement, or personal loss—their pain does not simply vanish. It lingers, demanding recognition. Their stories, if left untold, weigh on both the individuals who carry them and the communities that surround them. This is what trauma studies teach us; as feminist writer Judith Herman explains, the ghosts of untold stories hover among us until we acknowledge them, until we find ways to narrate their suffering. While the general tendency for healing is to look toward the individualized spaces such as clinics, Healing, then, is not just an internal process. It happens in relation to others. It requires attention—real, sustained presence. It demands that we listen, that we hold space for each other’s pain.
We heal where we belong. We belong where we heal. To belong is to have permission to speak, to be able to have a voice. It is to allow the borders of the body to be porous and receptive, to expand beyond oneself without fear. It is to trust that the senses are not meant to be contained, that they long to merge with the world. In spaces of belonging, the body awakens to its full sensory potential. Sound, touch, and breath move freely, unguarded. It is to sense fully—to feel the air as an invitation, the nearness of others as affirmation, the space itself as something that holds and recognizes you.
Spaces for gathering may be abundant, but the miracle we call belonging cannot be forced. We have memorials, art openings, book talks, cocktail hours. We have endless talk of trauma, of pain. But that rare experience—when one’s body feels comfortably nested in the holding presence of others—remains elusive.
That elusive experience is what I’ve felt at ARTogether gatherings. Inside a small gallery, on each visit, I feel part of the practice of belonging. The room is often filled with people from different backgrounds, speaking different languages, yet bound by something deeper than words: a shared insistence that we are here, together. In that space, art and storytelling became a way to stitch back the torn fabric of connection. Everyone in the room seemed to crave it. Me, most of all. For a moment, the isolation that so often accompanies everyday life gave way to something else: a brief but certain belonging.
I write about healing and belonging, because they are not just abstract ideas for me— they are a lived struggle, a question that has shaped my very sense of self. As an Iranian immigrant living in the United States for the past twenty years, belonging has never been a given—it has been a crisis, a constant negotiation. I have learned that my story is not just my own; it exists in a landscape shaped by politics that amplifies certain narratives while erasing others. I have seen how the pain of my people can be co-opted—turned into a weapon to justify aggression rather than an invitation to understanding. This has made me acutely aware of the politics of space, of how we are heard, when our voices are taken seriously, and when they are distorted to fit a predetermined script. Over the years, I have come to recognize two Irans: the one I know through lived experience and the one that persists in the Western imagination, a projection shaped by fantasy rather than reality. In spaces of healing and belonging, I am free to carry my own truth, to move fluidly between my identities as an Iranian, a woman, a feminist, and an immigrant—not as fragments, but as a whole.
The spaces of healing, I’ve come to see, are built with intention, with integrity woven into every step of their creation. They are the organic result of a process shaped by an ethics of care and a politics of inclusion. What makes ARTogether stand out to me is precisely this commitment—one that isn’t performative or selective, but deeply embedded in how the space is held, how people are welcomed. That integrity transmits itself. It creates an atmosphere that naturally draws like-minded people, forming a community where trust can grow.
I feel at home there, because something in the space signals safety— the kind of safety that allows for vulnerability, expression, and connection. And safety, in turn, gives way to growth. ARTogether offers more than refuge; it offers an alternative—a vision of resilience, of hope, of what the world could be if we built it with the same care.
ARTogether’s approach resonates deeply with the idea that healing begins when we bear witness to one another’s stories. This is the essence of ARTogether: to create a platform for voices too often silenced by the isolating forces of modern life; to counter an economic philosophy that elevates patriarchal notions of individual achievement over collective healing.
ARTogether’s events echo a simple yet profound truth: when we come together—when we listen, share, and create—we forge the very ties that make us human. And in that collective space, every voice finds its place, every story finds its echo, and every individual is reminded of what truly matters—a sense of belonging.
About the writer: Kiana Karimi is a scholar of performance studies and an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of English at City University of New York. Her dissertation, Thinking Through a Thinned Skin: Examining Skin at the Intersection of Postcolonial Trauma and Performance, received the 2023 Deena Burton Award.
