Education
FSU Discovery Days: Arts-Humanities-Health Symposium fosters interdisciplinary collaboration
Florida State University artists, scientists and therapists united at the Arts-Humanities-Health Symposium during Discovery Days to explore how the arts and humanities can improve our health and well-being.
The symposium at the Claude Pepper Center featured art and music therapy, design, and for the first time, motion picture arts, showcasing the breadth of creativity at FSU.
Healing through art
Presenters at the event highlighted how their work uses art to support physical and mental health.
Michelle Pellito, a music therapist at the FSU College of Music, spoke about how collaborative goal setting with young patients helps them learn they have personal agency and that expressing themselves can change their environment.
Children communicate their wants and needs in a variety of ways, from traditional speech to noises, body language and nonverbal cues. Therapists have a duty to listen, notice and offer feedback, no matter how subtle, for the best possible care, Pellito said.
“Patient-centered care is at the heart of everything we do as music therapists. Care is most effective when it’s created with the patients and not just for them,” she said.
Brianna Vo, a second-year medical student at the FSU College of Medicine, told the story of an artist at the bedside of a patient. The patient, through the hands of the artist, draws a colorful picture of a butterfly. To educate healthcare students about the power of patient-centered visual arts, Vo ran two different “Brushes to Bedside” workshops.
In the first workshop, a “patient” directed their “practitioner,” using only spoken voice, to craft a personalized mosaic coaster for them. In the second workshop, healthcare students painted a watercolor landscape with modified tools, like a sock over their dominant hand or a lump of clay wrapped around a paintbrush, to simulate motor restrictions. Vo showed that after the workshops, students had more confidence in their ability to adapt to a patient’s abilities and incorporate visual arts into patient-provider interactions.
Doctoral candidate Xingyi Li and Assistant Professor Bani Malhotra from the FSU Department of Arts Leadership, Education & Therapy studied the impact of art therapy on hospitalized burn patients. Research shows that art therapy has significant mental, emotional and physical benefits. Li and Malhotra gifted art kits to patients and held viewing sessions of “hopeful” pieces and tactile squares.
“Art therapy gives tangible form to thoughts and emotions that may be hard to articulate otherwise,” Li said.
A visual slice of life
David Wiley, a filmmaker in residence at the FSU College of Motion Picture Arts, spoke about a screenwriting workshop in which undergraduate film students must produce a short narrative film, restricted to a runtime of only two and a half minutes.
Wiley conducts a similar activity where the class conjures stories that are just six words long, like the famous example “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” The challenge in both is to craft a piece that tells a quick but captivating story.
Students’ films drew inspiration from a variety of subjects. Liana Burse’s “Happy New Year” comprises a young woman’s bittersweet holiday as she contemplates years gone by. Luciano Alzate made “No Gastes Tiempo” (“Don’t Waste Time”) to capture the complexity of human nature and identity. Wiley played Nicole Webb’s “Home,” a gripping tale about a daughter living with her mother who tries to imbue normalcy into their troubled life.
“There’s a lot of humanity and caretaking we do in terms of the culture at the film school,” Wiley said.
Designing the future of health and medicine
After on-stage presentations, attendees had the opportunity to see more work from students at a research poster forum hosted by the FSU School of Design.
In the fall of 2026, groups of senior interior design students chose between renovating an in-patient pediatric unit, a pediatric intensive care unit or designing a new pediatric unit. During the development process, students interviewed practitioners, patients, physicians and medical staff for firsthand insight about what was important to include in their projects.
Each of their proposals integrated intentional color palettes, accessible nurse stations, interconnected areas for parents and patients, playrooms for children ages zero to eighteen and more. The “Celestial Children’s Corner” had a sun, moon, stars and sky theme, with bright periwinkles and dusky blues to evoke calm. Taking advantage of Tallahassee’s iconic plant life, “Canopy of Care” blended medical features with canopy tree forms. “Little Tailwinds” resurfaced the location’s previous occupation as an Air Force base and included customizable elements.