Strengthening Relationships Through Art
SaludArte is a project made possible through a partnership between the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona and the Pima County Health Department in collaboration with CODAC.
2025 SALUDARTE PROGRAM VISION
Our collaboration unites public health and the arts to reduce stigma by fostering connectivity and understanding within communities. Through creative expression and highlighting lived experiences, we aim to build strong, empathetic connections that bridge gaps and dissolve barriers. SaludArte visualizes inclusive spaces where every individual feels connected, valued, and supported.
2025 PROJECT OVERVIEW
The goal of this project is to create a series of socially engaged public art installations in Pima County designed to foster connection, understanding, and empathy while addressing the stigma surrounding substance use. Through a collaborative process, the art installations will be developed by Elizabeth Burden with a panel of individuals with lived experience of substance use. By using temporary public art, the installations are meant to encourage meaningful dialogue, increase the acceptance of resources, and overall, promote positive health outcomes between people who use drugs (PWUD), service providers, and the broader community.
By harnessing the power of art, this project seeks to challenge stigma and improve positive health outcomes. It also aims to foster empathy and understanding within the greater community while strengthening relationships between PWUD, service providers, and the broader community service organizations. A Public Art Panel (Panel) was convened to select an artist and contribute to the design and themes of the art installations. Through this engagement, the project hopes to increase access to treatment and harm reduction services, ultimately helping to reduce accidental overdose deaths, stigma, and related issues.
Artists and individuals with lived and living experience will be central to shaping the project, ensuring that their perspectives and insights guide the artistic process. The initiative also prioritizes the inclusion of historically marginalized communities, reinforcing a commitment to equity and representation in public art.
SaludArte Goals
- Reflect community values, strengths, and resilience
- Elevate the voices of diverse cultures, communities, and groups
- Promote community healing and social cohesion
- Raise consciousness about social justice issues
- Engage intergenerationally and across traditional age barriers
- Increase access to equitable health services
- Enhance health communications between the community and health professionals
- Enhance community participation and strengthen community relationships
Elizabeth Burden
2025 SaludArte Artist
Elizabeth Burden is a multidisciplinary artist who uses drawing, painting, video, sound, and other media in a process of artistic archivy to reflect on geographies, imaginaries, and vestiges of the past/present/future. Her work is deeply rooted in the pull of archives, the construction of histories, ephemeral inheritances, and the ways we make sense of it all.
Burden holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MS in Geographic Information Science from the University of Arizona. She has held residencies at the Studios at MASS MoCA, Santa Fe Arts Institute, and Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and was a 2020 Mellon Projecting All Voices Fellow.
Follow @burdenelizabeth on Instagram
Schedule of We Recover Together Events
October 3
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Say One Thing – Windows Walking Tour, 4:00 PM
- Fox Theatre box office, 17 W Congress, two windows
- Main Library (101 N Stone), one window each on first, second, and third floors
- The Adler Group, (100 N Stone Avenue), one window
- Pioneer Building (17 E Pennington), four windows
- City High School (33 E Pennington), all the windows
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Twilight in Concert @ the Fox, open until 7:30 PM
October 4
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Collage Workshop (before First Saturday Art Walk), 5:30 – 7:00 PM
October 9
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Mavis Staples @ the Fox, open until 7:30 PM
October 10
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Julia Keefe @ the Fox, open until 7:30 PM
October 14
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Curious Conversation: Healing, Humor, and the Heart of Wellbeing, 1:00 – 2:00 PM
In partnership with the Fox Tucson Theatre – Registration required
October 17 – 19
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Extended hours for Tucson Meet Yourself
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Friday, October 17: Cipher Session (Hip Hop Jam), 6:00 – 7:30 PM
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Saturday, October 18 & Sunday, October 19: Arts Activities, 12:00 – 6:00 PM
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Recovery Living Room
Regular Hours:
Monday – Friday, 12:00 PM – 5:00 PM
2025 SaludArte News
Browse all SaludArte updates below.
2023 SALUDARTE
SaludArte is a collaborative project between the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona and the Pima County Health Department to find ways in which community engagement, health, and art can intersect to amplify the voices and experiences of our community while also helping to increase health equity, access, literacy and COVID-19 mitigation across Pima County.
The SaludArte effort launched in 2022 by leveraging census data, the Social Vulnerability Index and COVID-19 data to identify some of the communities in Pima County that were both the hardest hit by COVID and under-resourced.
SaludArte recruited 15 community members from each identified zip code to participate in a series of meetings to share their pandemic experiences and express hopes for a resilient and brighter future. A committee from each district then held a series of four meetings to: 1) orient and educate community members about the public art process and review artist applications, 2) make a final artist selection, 3) capture community members’ experiences to incorporate into the artist’s temporary art installation, and 4) formally approve the final concept design.
The selected artists have built deep roots and community connections within each district and have created meaningful expressions of art that will be unveiled at each “Celebrate SaludArte” event. The artists are Luis Mena for District 1; Barbea Williams, District 2; Jose Sandoval, District 3; Anón (Jhonattan and Samantha Arango), District 4; and Mata Ruda in District 5.
2023 SaludArte Artists
Explore the Artist Directory profiles of the 2023 SaludArte artists.
Recap of 2023 Celebrate SaludArte Events
The Pima County Health Department and the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona hosted “Celebrate SaludArte,” a series of five free Art and Wellness events this September and October.
These family-friendly events brought together public art and public health and featured community-inspired artwork, live performances, food trucks, raffles prizes, and many health resources. Artists also unveiled their temporary art installations at each celebration, which were held in each of Pima County’s five supervisory districts.
following events:
- District 4 Celebration – Sunday, Sept. 24, from 2 – 6 p.m. at the Green Valley Community Performance & Art Center (CPAC)
- District 1 Celebration – Saturday, Sept. 30, from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. at Ann Day Community Park
- District 5 Celebration – Sunday, Oct. 8, from 2 – 6 p.m. at Winston Reynolds-Manzanita Park
- District 2 Celebration – Sunday, Oct. 15, from 2 – 6 p.m. at Madge Utterback Middle School
- District 3 Celebration – Saturday, Oct. 28, from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. at the Ajo Plaza
Thank you for our Community Supporters
2023 SaludArte TIMEline
Public Art project timelines follow the schedule of the SaludArte Committee meetings in each district. Dates are subject to change depending on the SaludArte Committee members availability. However, the anticipated timeline for SaludArte Committee meetings that include the finalists and selected artists will occur from December 2022 through March 2023. The selected Artist/Artist Team will be expected to participate in at least 2-3 meetings between this time frame. Dates are subject to change.
- November 23, 2022 – Call to Artist Guidelines Posted
- January 18, 2023 – Application Deadline 11:59 p.m. Arizona Time
- January 25, 2023 – SaludArte Committee scores applicants
- February 8, 2023 – Artist Selection | Finalists Interviews
- February 28, 2023 – Announcement of Recommended Artists/Artist Teams
- March 3, 2023 – Artist/Artist teams collaborate with participants in their designated supervisory district to inform the concept of the art project
- March 15, 2023 –Artist/Artist Teams pitches conceptual design to participants for final approval
- March – September 30, 2023 – Final Design Phase & Production Phase
- September – October 2023 – Installation of artworks at Community Event(s), location and date to be determined
SaludArte – AJO Timeline
- April 7, 2023 – Call to Artist Guidelines Posted
- May 8, 2023 – Application Deadline 11:59 p.m. Arizona Time
- May 13, 2023 – SaludArte Committee scores applicants
- May 27, 2023 – Artist Selection | Finalists Interviews
- June 3, 2023 – Artist/Artist teams collaborate with participants in their designated supervisory district to inform the concept of the art project
- June 24, 2023 –Artist/Artist Teams pitches conceptual design to participants for final approval
- July – September 30, 2023 – Final Design Phase & Production Phase
- October 2023 – Installation of artworks at Community Event(s), location and date to be determined
