Bio
Roah Karim is a Lecturer at the Department of Art Therapy and Counseling. They currently work as a Medical Art Therapist at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. They hold a BFA from the University of Sharjah, UAE, and a MAATC from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Roah’s current research interests revolve around artistic, cultural, and therapeutic methods of Palestinian resistance.
As an interdisciplinary artist and art therapist driven by their roots, human connection, and social justice, Roah centers identity and experience, both individual and collective, through intentional art-making and therapeutic relationship building. They work from person/family centered, trauma informed, decolonial, and feminist relational-cultural frameworks, striving to depathologize concepts and practices of mental health through employing relevant cultural traditions, narrative, spirituality, community practices, and activism.
In Roah's current clinical role, they provide bedside art therapy interventions on inpatient units to children and adolescents of varying medical, behavioral/psychiatric, and psychosocial needs, where they actively advocate for patient identity, accessibility, and autonomy. Roah also has international experience working with children of various cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds via diverse platforms, including refugees, immigrants, unhoused youth, and school children.
Languages:
Arabic, English
Disclaimer: All work represents the views of the INDIVIDUAL ARTISTS & AUTHORS who created them, and are not those of the school or museum of the Art Institute.
