Creativity, the Brain, and Parkinson’s

Join us for an in-person moderated conversation with the artist and neuropsychologist David H. Rose about the relationship between creativity, the brain, and Parkinson’s. Following her diagnosis, artist Torrance York turned to photography to better understand and manage her Parkinson’s disease. Her experience is more than anecdotal; science tells us that making and enjoying art can support wellbeing because of what it does to the brain. 

Torrance York earned a BA from Yale and an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design. Exhibited nationally and internationally, her work is held in public and private collections. In 2022, she published her monograph Semaphore about the shift in her perspective after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease; in Lenscratch’s 2021 Art & Science Awards, it was a Critical Mass Finalist, and selected as a favorite book of 2022 by the online photography magazine What Will You Remember? York presented at the World Parkinson’s Congress in Barcelona, the Neurology Department’s Grand Rounds at the University of Virginia Medical School, and to various Parkinson’s support groups. Semaphore has been exhibited in solo shows at the Danforth Art Museum at Framingham State University (MA) and at Rick Wester Fine Art in NYC, who represents her work. 

Developmental neuropsychologist David Rose completed a postdoctoral fellowship in neuropsychology research at Children’s Hospital in Boston. There, he was a staff psychologist in the Developmental Evaluation Clinic, and later served as Director of North Shore Children’s Hospital’s Medical and Educational Evaluation Center. While leading that clinic, Dr. Rose began teaching part time at Harvard, where he soon helped to develop (with Howard Gardner and Kurt Fisher) the Mind, Brain, and Education program. Over the next 30 years, he taught at Harvard—primarily in educational neuroscience—and served as the Co-Executive Director of CAST, a not-for-profit research and development center that originated the field of Universal Design for Learning.