Unbound tells the powerful story of a community coming together to uplift those most impacted by severe mental illness through art. 

1500 people created a striking 80-foot long sculpture at one of California’s largest psychiatric facilities, the Department of State Hospitals-Napa. Never before had an artwork of this magnitude been created inside a secure facility in partnership with the outside community. 

Over 500 patients, 200 hospital staff and 800 community volunteers built a sculpture of collective liberation of hundreds of winged hearts flying free from a cage and together forged an innovative new model of participatory public art.

Emerging from one woman’s personal quest to heal from her family’s journey with schizophrenia, the Unbound project was conceived and offered as an antidote to the despair and isolation often associated with mental illness.

Unbound offers an inspiring example of personal and collective healing through art and serves as a powerful reminder of the boundless potential of the human spirit, showing what is possible when we open our hearts, lift each other up, and embrace the transformative power of art.

Visions of Hope is a healing art program created by Life On Art culminating in an exhibition of over 100 unique winged hearts created by incarcerated women and men inside California prisons. 

Over a period of many weeks a team of volunteers visited the prisons and gave each person a papier-mâché, ‘winged heart’ and provided inspiration and art supplies. The incarcerated men and women then took their own journey to decorate and adorn the hearts with their thoughts, emotions and color choices to create their own Heart Story. Sometimes they were inspired to write music, poems or journal. 

Once all the artwork was completed, documentary filmmaker Vince Beeton from Humans Being Media and stills photographer Lisa Baird captured the essence of the emotional and often healing journeys of their personal Heart Stories. 
Then the Life On Art team carefully took the artwork and installed over 200 original pieces in a multimedia exhibition at the Marin County Civic Center. 
When you download the free app called Bloomberg Connects, you can access a content-rich documentary film series interviewing the artists and revealing their individual Heart Stories, photographs and bios.