A graduate student from Florida State University’s Art Therapy Program has launched a project linking seniors in Tallahassee with dementia patients in South Korea through an exchange of letters and artwork. The initiative aims to show how art therapy can build understanding across cultures.
Brittany Nyberg, who recently completed her studies at FSU’s Department of Art Education in the College of Fine Arts, developed the exchange as part of her final project. She focused on applying art therapy principles within specific communities.
“I wanted to try and apply the concepts I’d been learning for two years to a much broader audience,” Nyberg said.
The project involved participants from Tallahassee and a community center near Seoul, South Korea. Each participant wrote an anonymous message about themselves and created a piece of art. These were then exchanged between the groups, providing a creative way for people to connect without revealing their identities.
“It was a chance for them to feel safe to put a message out in the world,” Nyberg said. “They could talk about something vulnerable without worrying the person reading it would ever know who they are.”
Nyberg observed cultural differences during the process. American participants were generally more open about sharing personal stories, while South Korean elders—accustomed to collective values—were initially hesitant. With encouragement, however, the South Korean group began sharing advice rooted in their culture, such as recommendations for seaweed soup or practicing Taekwondo.
“They really connected to the messages from the U.S.,” Nyberg said. “When they started writing about their own experiences, you could tell they were trying to get something meaningful out of it.”
Dave Gussak, professor of Art Therapy and director of FSU’s Institute for the Arts and Art Therapy with the Imprisoned, helped Nyberg connect with colleagues at Seoul Women’s University and Byeollae Community Service Center for the South Korean portion of her project.
Inspired by “Message in a Bottle” exchanges, Nyberg asked elders in both countries to create paintings depicting where they imagined their messages might travel.
Nyberg received additional support from Nancy Gerber and Karina Donald—both faculty members in FSU’s Art Therapy Program—who served as mentors for her culminating project.
Living in Seoul also influenced Nyberg’s approach as a therapist by helping her understand language barriers firsthand.
“Putting myself into that kind of bewildering situation helped me understand the anxiety my patients may feel,” she said.
Nyberg plans to refine and possibly repeat this cultural exchange in future projects. “There were a lot of interesting cultural variations that popped up,” she said. “I think it could be even more impactful next time.”
She emphasized that art can bridge gaps between cultures: “Art and metaphor can transcend verbal communication across borders while still honoring the cultural contexts that shape us,” Nyberg said. “We should be sharing these ideas as much as possible.”
FSU offers Florida’s only graduate program in art therapy, which prepares students with master’s degrees for entry-level positions as art therapists through coursework focused on knowledge, skills, behavior learning domains, theories, research-informed practices, and culturally sensitive approaches (https://arted.fsu.edu/graduate/art-therapy/).
For more information about FSU’s Art Therapy Program visit https://arted.fsu.edu/.
