# feelings are data
Play and self-reflect at the Crossings Gallery exhibition, *feelings are data*, by Allston artist and educator Nina Bhattacharya. Through a collection of visual and participatory pieces, explore how we make meaning from our feelings.
Bhattacharya's tender collage series weaves together affirmations and archival images to invite curiosity about community, care, and our internal worlds. Hands-on activities—like a tarot-inspired card deck, response cards, and collage magnets—prompt visitors to have fun and learn new things about themselves!
### *Experience this interactive exhibit at the Crossings Gallery through May 25, 2023.*
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### **Go to:**
- [Artist Statement](#artist-statement)
- [Artwork On View](#artwork-on-view)
- [Community Celebration](#upcoming-events)
- [Meet the Artist](#meet-the-artist)
## Reflection, Emotions, and Art
"My collages are artifacts of reflection and physical representations of the ideas, source texts, and questions I simmer on during the act of making. Through the tactile experience of interacting with these works as a deck of cards, I am inviting you to embark on your own integrative and reflective journey.
Through my work as an educator and mental health professional, I’ve witnessed the possibilities that emerge when we nurture our capacity to sit with difficult thoughts. It is beautiful work, but can demand much of us.
In one difficult season of my life, I turned to pulling tarot cards. There was something meditative in the structure of shuffling a deck, drawing a single card, and paging through the tiny accompanying guidebook to find its meaning. It was tangible and doable. The daily ritual of pulling cards became gentle scaffolding for making more sense of my inner world.
I hope as you pull a card or find yourself drawn to a specific piece, you feel inspired to approach your feelings with a little more compassion—or, at the very least, with greater neutrality. In exploring these collages and ascribing your own meaning to them, you might find that feelings are not "right" or "wrong." Rather, they can gift us the information needed to spelunk into the depths of our personality and calibrate how we move through the world."
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## Community Celebration
On May 12, 2023, the Harvard Ed Portal hosted a celebratory event featuring creative responses to Bhattacharya's work, including original poetry by payal kumar, new music by Ava Sophia, and kathak dance performances by Chhandika. Community members enjoyed the performances, mingle with their neighbors, pulled cards from the tarot-inspired deck, and added their reflections to the installation.
##### *Photo by Mel Taing (Instagram: [@m.ltaing](https://www.instagram.com/m.ltaing/))*
[](https://radio-rani.com/)
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](https://www.instagram.com/radio.rani/) [ 
](https://twitter.com/onlynina)
## Nina Bhattacharya
Nina Bhattacharya ("Radio Rani", she/her) is an artist and educator from Michigan, now based in Boston, MA. As the visual artist Radio Rani, she stitches together reflections on liberation, community, and spirituality through digital collage. Her pieces stitch archival images with the visual details of scrapbook kitsch, and offer tender commentary on current moments and movements. Nina's artwork has been displayed in a variety of spaces in Boston, including the Institute for Contemporary Arts / Boston, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Harvard University.
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In her life as an educator and facilitator, Nina designs learning experiences that nurture and amplify the agency, wellbeing, and creative power of young people. She is Senior Instructional Design Specialist at Harvard University, has taught courses for students at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Harvard College, facilitated programs for LGBTQ+ and Hindu youth, and organized workshops for activists across the country. As an enthusiastic emcee, Nina also builds intergenerational creative community with Subcontinental Drift Boston, the first and longest-running South Asian open mic in the city. She is also a kathak dancer and a self-taught audio engineer, contributing to several diverse audio projects and podcasts.
Most recently, Nina was a fellow in the Harvard Ed Portal’s inaugural [Artist Pipeline Program](/artist-pipeline-program). Nina is currently a clinical social work student at Boston College, and previously received her M.S. in Global Health & Population from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.