Resolving Conflict Through Puppets with William Estrada and Jasmin Cardenas

Jasmin Cardenas is an actress, director, published storyteller, deviser, and arts activist who uses the mediums of story and theater to move human hearts towards compassion and action. The daughter of Colombian immigrants, Jasmin uses teatro and play in joyful resistance to the status quo. Working with youth, low-wage temp workers, and Chicagoans across the city Jasmin uses theater, storytelling, viewpoints, and a technique called Theater of the Oppressed for collective action, critical thinking, solution finding, and healing. Recognized for her arts and civic engagement work, she was awarded a 2020-2022 LAB Fellowship by The Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University. Recently adding playwright and filmmaker to her titles, she is a nationally touring storyteller and a proud SAG-AFTRA Actress. 

William Estrada is an arts educator and multidisciplinary artist. His art and teaching are a collaborative discourse that critically re-examines public and private spaces with people to engage in radical imagination. He has presented on various panels regarding community programming, arts integration, and social justice curricula. He is currently a Visual Arts Teacher at Telpochcalli Elementary and faculty at the School of Art and Art History at the University of Illinois at Chicago. William is engaging in collaborative work with the Mobilize Creative Collaborative, Chicago ACT Collective, and Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative. His current research is focused on developing community based and culturally relevant projects that center power structures of race, economy, and cultural access in contested spaces that provide a space to collectively imagine just futures.

Art from the Heart is a downstate Illinois-based non-profit organization founded in 2020 by Heather Canuel. Art from the Heart creates a fun and therapeutic safe space for children of incarcerated parents to learn about and express themselves through the arts and to develop friendships with other children who have been through similar experiences. Through the program, children are able to create their own artwork to send to their parents and are able to sustain the bonds of the parent-child relationship. 

Get involved at Art from the Heart

Illinois Humanities is collaborating with community organizations in six Illinois towns to host free public arts and educational programs for all ages. These six events featuring the artists, educators, and organizers behind Envisioning Justice RE:ACTION create opportunities to for us to reimagine timely conversations about justice, safety, community, and belonging.

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