InnerSections: Call Me Mother Film Suite

Stacey Allen

Stacey Allen is an award-winning performance artist, curator, and advocate for arts education, educational equity, and reproductive justice, all while being a wife and mother to three beautiful children. Maintaining her artistic practice while navigating Motherhood has come with challenges, but integrating the art of mothering with her insistence on telling Black stories through movement and material culture has been worth the while.

Allison Bates, DSW, LCSW-S

Dr. Allison Bates has close to 15 years of experience providing mental health services to children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families. Allison also owns and manages a group counseling practice providing supervision and mentorship to pre-licensed mental health clinicians. Allison is extremely passionate about helping Black men and women find safe spaces to address mental health challenges and develop the skills needed to manage societal pressures, microaggressions, and systemic discriminatory practices in their personal and professional lives. She also stresses the importance of educating Black communities on the connection between mental and physical health due to the high rates of death from chronic diseases. Allison is deeply committed to ensuring her students learn how to assist clients in connecting past trauma to current physical health challenges and faulty thinking and behavioral patterns.

Tracie Jae

Tracie Jae, known as The Quiet Rebel, has spent the last decade creating spaces where truth, nuance, and connection can thrive. She helps individuals, teams, and communities navigate meaningful conversations and embrace a more human approach to leadership and decision-making.  With a gentle presence and a spark of quiet rebellion, Tracie weaves storytelling, reflection, and communal truth-telling into experiences that invite both pause and possibility.

Deborah D.E.E.P Mouton

Deborah D.E.E.P Mouton is an award-winning literary artist, director, performer, and the first Black Poet Laureate of Houston, TX. She authored Newsworthy (Bloomsday Literary, 2019) and Black Chameleon (Henry Holt & Co., 2023), which won the Carr P. Collins award for Best Nonfiction through the Texas Institute of Letters (2024). Mouton has contributed to Glamour, Texas Monthly, and ESPN’s Andscape. Her recent works include a children’s book (Hush Hush Hurricane, Kokila) and an opera at Chicago Opera Theater. 

Keda Sharber

Keda Sharber is a Houston-based storyteller who uses film, photo, and written/spoken word to investigate and reveal the beautifully complex truths of her community. Passionate about the intersection of art and social impact, Keda is dedicated to creating spaces where creativity thrives and where art serves as a catalyst for positive change.

This program is part of InnerSections, The Health Museum’s interdisciplinary platform for bridging the arts and health in conversation. InnerSections is a series of dialogues that explore the inner worlds of human experience through the intersecting disciplines of art, science, and medicine. Each gathering brings together experts from diverse fields for intimate dialogues that spark wonder and curiosity, leading to a deeper understanding.

The program is intended for educational purposes only and is open to audiences of all ages.