Aliza Gebin

Aliza Gebin's craft comes in the form of activating community engagement in the arts as a vehicle for personal and collective healing and growth. For over a decade and throughout her various roles in the social service field, Aliza continues to develop and facilitate workshops and therapeutic opportunities that invite participants to see themselves as artists, honor process over product, dive into sensory experience, and reflect on the intersectionality between caring for self, ʻāina, and each other.

With a background in psychology, horticultural therapy, and social services, Aliza co-founded Root & Rise Hawaiʻi in 2021, a non-profit that aims to cultivate social and emotional wellness through therapeutic, integrative mental health programs accessible to underserved populations. While Aliza's work with Root & Rise is primarily geared toward adults with mental health challenges, she also offers workshops for children in the Hawaiʻi public schools, at local art camps, and in collaboration with community-based organizations. Aliza currently leads the year-long Vibrant Hawaiʻi Art Fellowship.

When left to her personal artistic practice, Aliza works with cut, layered, and dyed paper, ephemera, and fabric, as well as plant-based and recycled materials. With reverence for creativity as a means and an end to wellbeing, Aliza creates bound books, 3D collage and shadow boxes, and stationary.