Laiqa Miriam is a Kashmiri-East Londoner, with nearly a decade of experience working in radical social-justice-informed creative spaces. She is a researcher, designer, facilitator, and integrative therapist in training at the renowned Minster Centre. She works at the intersection of visual arts, mental health, and social justice; spending her time with communities on the ground, working from a strategic bird’s eye view, or occasionally bridging these two perspectives.
Laiqa has a plethora of diverse experience across industries; from transnational FMCGs to the third sector, and everything in between. Across all her roles, she draws from her academic background in Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality, and her work typically focuses on improving the lives of marginalised communities by:
- Building research that tackles barriers by developing, organising, and implementing ideas, practices, people, and resources in service of collective liberation.
- Storytelling design that improves representation by sharing community stories, culture, and histories through art, media, and movement.
- Healing participatory engagement that tends to intergenerational and current traumas caused by oppressive systems, policy, and practice.*
(*Roles guided by Deepa Iyer's Building Movement Project. SM, © 2020 Deepa Iyer. All rights reserved. All prior licenses revoked.)
Projects
- London SleepsThe Museum of London may be closed on Christmas Day, but London's streets are always open. 'London Sleeps', stars Mohamed Mohamed, a British-Somali poet from south London, who moved to London when he was a child to flee civil war in Somalia. The Museum of London commissioned a film depicting Mohamed’s annual journey as he cycles to a central London mosque to pray.
Work history
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UKCP Trainee TherapistSt Joseph’s Hospice
London, United KingdomPart Time
St Joseph's Hospice cares for and supports people affected by serious illness. Their Bereavement Counselling service provides therapy to adult relatives and friends of people who have died under the care of St Joseph’s and to adult Hackney residents who have experienced a bereavement.
Providing empathetic and compassionate bereavement therapy to individuals as they navigate the complexities of grief and loss. Utilize a client-centered approach, tailoring counseling sessions to address each client's unique needs and circumstances in a non-judgmental and justice-informed environment. Drawing from evidence-based and relational therapeutic models to guide clients through the grieving process and foster restorative healing and self-understanding.
Arts in Health: NHS Programme Manager [Band 6]NHS
London, United KingdomPart Time
CNWL Arts in Health is an NHS community-based service that runs parallel to mainstream psychotherapeutic services, supporting patients with complex and enduring mental health conditions, by using creative participatory engagement for over a decade.
Managing the design and deliver of CNWL Arts in Health and the day-to-day running of the remote and in-person service primarily focusing on; programme delivery, managing design and comms, and acting as main point of contact for the client group. Monitoring safeguarding, risk assessments, and evaluation and learning.
Building sustainable community relationships with cultural and arts organisations, curating our digital presence and external comms, and developing specialised events to make the art world more accessible for clients, in collaboration with organisations like the British Museum and Alexandra Palace.
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Skills
- Project Management
- UX Design
- Social Inclusion
- Accessibility
- Design Research
- Community Development
- Art Therapy
- Research Writing
- Communication Design
Education
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Postgraduate Diploma in Integrative Psychotherapy and CounsellingThe Minster Centre
London, United Kingdom
An intensive development of counselling skills and a deeper understanding of the theoretical frameworks and concepts underpinning different counselling approaches, leading to an integration of these into a personalised counselling practice.
The course will cover humanistic, existential, psychodynamic and body work approaches to counselling. As well as being grounded in the traditional approaches to psychotherapy and counselling, the course will pull from experience and expertise in contemporary understandings, such as neurobiology, relational and embodied work.
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Post Graduate Studies in Integrative Psychotherapy and CounsellingThe Minster Centre
- London, United Kingdom
A critical foundation into the field of counselling and psychotherapy from an integrative standpoint, from the UKCP accredited Minster Centre. Blending together key scholarships from the likes of Freud's Psychodynamic practice, Carl Roger's Humanistic principles, and other modalities like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Psychoanalysis and Personal centred therapy.
Incorporating theory from Neuroscience, Body and Transpersonal Psychotherapy, as well as responding to key social and ethical issues. The therapeutic training draws from a relational, and experiential perspective, embedding Race equality, Cultural studies, and Feminist principles into the core of learning.
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Awards
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PCA x Terra Foundation Research Project of 2018Terra Foundation for American Art Europe
Awarded the PCA x Terra Foundation Research Project to undertake research and presentation exploring the history of American Art. Final thesis entitled "The Black & White American Dream." A study into re-establishing the image of Women of Colour in Art & Society.