Sharoll Sinani Studio

Sharoll Fernandez Siñani: I am
Sharoll Fernandez Sinani Keeper

of the Heart Portal, where poetry,
pulses, ancestors, whisper, and tough

dialogue alchemizes into luminous love.

Take a breath, step through.

Let's create.

Hello and welcome.

My name is Sharoll Fernandez Sinani.

I am an artist and educator an Aymara
Bolivian woman with a story to tell.

Thank you for joining me for
this first episode of our Serious

on Constructive Disagreement,
collective Memory, art and Healing.

In this series, we'll explore how we
can disagree more constructively, how

communities remember trauma and how art
and poetry can help us heal and transform.

This opening episode is all about
what this is and why it matters.

Laying out the big ideas and framing the
journey we are about to take together.

I invite you to get comfortable as we
begin, perhaps take a deep breath with me.

These will be a thoughtful and
at times emotional conversation.

We'll start broad with some guiding
ideas, and then gently move into a

real life story from my homeland of
Bolivia that ties them all together.

Along the way, we'll share a short
excerpt from one of my poems, and we'll

see how all these threads, disagreement,
memory, art, and healing, intertwine

constructive disagreement,
learning to listen.

Let's begin with
constructive disagreement.

In a world that often feels so divided,
what goes what does it mean to disagree?

Constructively?

It's easy to associate disagreement
with conflict, anger, or a

breakdown in communication.

But disagreement is and of itself
it isn't always a bad thing.

In fact, conflict resolution experts
remind us that disagreement is

natural and can even be healthy.

It can help us learn more
about ourselves and each other.

Think about it.

If we all thought the
same, we'd never grow.

It's when we encounter a different
perspective that we are challenged to

reflect and expand our understanding.

Of course, and not all
disagreements are productive.

We've all been in arguments that left
us hard and hurt, or even polarized.

Research in psychology shows that
many people tend to misinterpret

disagreement as a sign that the
other person isn't listening.

Have you ever felt that way?

If you really heard me,
you'd agree with me.

It's a common feeling.

We naturally favor those who see
the world as we do a little mental

quirk known as the halo effect, which
makes us view people who agree with

us as more likable or trustworthy.

And there is another quirk
called naive realism.

The tendency to believe that our view
of reality is the objective truth.

So if someone disagrees, it can almost
feel like an attack on what's right.

But what if we flip the script?

What if instead of seeing
a disagreement as a threat.

We see it as an opportunity,
a chance to learn.

Studies find that most people, when given
a choice, would rather have a conversation

where they learn something rather
than just be persuaded of something.

Constructive disagreement is about
how we argue, not whether we argue.

It means disagreeing with
respect and curiosity.

It means I can say, I hear you.

I understand what you're saying,
even if I have a different view.

In practical terms, it
starts with listening.

Truly listening.

Even if I end up saying, I disagree, you
should feel that I respected your voice.

That's hard.

Very, but it's powerful when
people feel heard and seen.

Disagreement doesn't have to
diss, descend into bitterness.

It can actually deepen understanding or
reveal creative solutions in this series.

When we talk about constructive
disagreement, we are talking about

engaging across differences in a way
that builds bridges Instead of burning

them, we'll explore techniques and
insights from conflict resolution like

active listening, empathy and open-minded
dialogue that help turn a potential

fight into true, fruitful conversation.

These matters immensely, especially when
disagreements are about painful, high

stakes issues like history, identity,
or justice, those are disagreements

that can tier communities and even
countries apart if approached with hate.

But if approach with compassion
and clarity, they can

lead to growth and change.

Now let's layer in the next
big idea, collective memory.

If constructive disagreement is
about how we engage with others in

the present, collective memory is
about how we engage with the past,

especially painful past events as a
group, every family, every community,

every nation carries its memories.

Some of those memories
are beautiful and proud.

Others are traumatic and hard to bear,
and just as an individual who has

experienced trauma might struggle with it
for years, communities can collectively

carry trauma forward through generations.

Researchers have a term
for this historical trauma.

The idea that trauma isn't only
experienced by those directly affected,

but can be passed down affecting the
children and grandchildren of those

who lead through the original heart.

In many indigenous communities around
the world, including my home country, you

can feel this intergenerational weight.

Psychologist at University of Calgary
note, for example, the traumas from things

like colonization and forced assimilation
can reverberate through generations.

The wounds of a grandmother or
grandfather, the violence they

saw, the injustices they endured,
those wounds can leave us car.

On the grand son who never met
them, or the granddaughter who

only knows the story secondhand.

I'll share something personal here.

My own Imara grandparents in Bolivia
carried a trauma of colonialism

in a subtle way through language.

They spoke Imara fluently, but
they wouldn't reach it to us.

They wouldn't teach it they wouldn't
share it with their grandchildren.

In fact, if my brother or I walked into
a room where they were speaking Amada,

they would immediately switch to Spanish.

For a long time I thought they didn't
want us to know their language.

Only later did I understand
they were protecting us.

In Bolivia, a country with a majority
indigenous population speaking

an indigenous language like Amara
has long carried stigma, a mark of

being less educated or provincial
in the eyes of the dominant society.

My grandparents had grown up hearing
that stigma, feeling the sting of being

labeled India negating their language.

Was a survival strategy.

They gave up a piece of themselves,
their mother tongue, so we could grow up

speaking the prestige language, in this
case, Spanish and face fewer barriers.

It was a sacrifice, a quite
painful one, as I see it now.

It was an act of love, born from trauma.

Colonial violence isn't
only its words and guns.

It's also the slow erosion of
identity and pride, and that

loss gets carried in memory.

I shared that story because it shows
how memory and trauma are linked.

The trauma of being shamed for
their indigenous identity lived

in my grandparents' memory, and it
affected how they raised us memory,

especially collective memory.

It's not just about what happened
decades or centuries ago.

It's about what we carry
today in our cultures, our

attitudes, our fears, and hopes.

Memory can inspire pride and
resistance, like remembering the

courage of an ancestor, but it
can also perpetrate pain if not

addressed in post-colonial societies.

The act of remembering
is often a political act.

Scholars like Elizabeth Jelling remind
us that memory is an arena of a struggle.

A battleground where different groups
fight to define the narrative of

what happened and what it means.

Whose version of history
becomes the official memory?

Who is silenced?

These questions are so important
because remembering or forgetting

the past is directly tied to justice
in the present in this series.

When we talk about memory, we'll often
be talking about healing memory, how

communities can confront painful stories
in a way that leads to understanding

and healing rather than more division.

This is where disagreement
and memory connect.

People disagree about
the past all the time.

One person's hero is another's villain.

One group's tragedy might be
absent from the history books or

even denied by those in power.

How do we navigate those disagreements?

How do we ensure that truth
is acknowledged, that wounds

are at are attended to, and
that all voices are heard?

These are big questions and
they don't have easy answers.

But they absolutely matter if we
want to transform trauma rather than

transmit it to the next generation.

So we have disagreement
and we have memory.

One rooted in the present, one
in the past, both challenging.

This brings us to our third theme.

The transformative
power of art and poetry.

This is a topic very close
to my heart as an artist.

When we face painful disagreements
or traumatic memories, logic and

arguments alone often fall short.

Facts are important.

I love facts, as you can tell by
my citations and footnotes, but

facts don't always heal hearts.

That's where art comes in.

Art, whether it's visual art,
music, dance, or poetry speaks to

the heart in different language.

It creates a space for emotion,
memory, and imagination.

So they coexist.

And where transformation can
happen in ways that a policy paper

or a debate might not achieve.

This is a growing body of research
and real world experience showing

how creative expression helps people
heal in psychology and public health.

Practitioners have found that engaging
in art can help trauma survivors

process their experiences safely.

Community arts programs have been used
to bring together groups who were in

conflict, allowing them to collaborate on
something beautiful and in the process.

See each other's humanity.

For instance, community organizations in
Chicago have brought young people from

rival gangs together to paint murals.

In doing so, they found that making
art side by side can ease tensions

and build empathy among people who
once saw each other as enemies.

As one program leader put it, it's
always been a healing tool referring

to art, creating something with
your hands, painting and sculpting.

Writing a poem can provide a
release and a sense of agency

that is deeply therapeutic.

Art also has a way of
telling truths that might.

Be too raw or complex to state plainly
around the world, we see examples

of art used to shine a light on
collective trauma and injustices.

Arts and culture can confront systemic
inequities and shift the narrative about

a community through creative expression.

In Argentina after ship, the
mothers of the disappear took the

streets with photos and songs.

Those acts of remembrance were both
art and protest etching the memory

of their children into the national
consciousness in South Africa.

After Apartheid, the truth
and reconciliation process

was accompanied by music and
storytelling in community forums.

Again, blending art with dialogue.

These creative practices help communities
not only to remember, but to reframe this.

Their stories from victims to
survivors, from chaos to meaning,

from isolation to solidarity.

I truly believe in the
redemptive power of art.

It's not a magic wand
that fixes everything.

No healing is hard work.

But art can open a door in a person's
heart that was slammed, shot by pain.

It can let in a bit of light.

It can also create a shared space.

You and I might disagree about
politics or history, but if we stand

in front of the same painting and
it moves us both to tears in that

moment, we found something common.

And human heart gives
us a way to communicate.

When ordinary worlds fail, it
speaks in color, in metaphor, in

melody, it can memorialize those.

We lost, give voice to feelings
we didn't know how to express.

In short, art can transform individual
and collective pain into something new.

Sometimes it's understanding,
sometimes action, sometimes just

the knowledge that I am not alone
as one group of survivor artists.

It's powerfully said,
collaborating together, be it.

The arts is inspiring,
empowering, and healing.

We can't change what happened to
us, but we are passionate about

having an artistic voice to prevent
it from happening to others.

That's a guiding light for me.

And that was the first,
our first encounter.

I am going to start getting the threads
together, and I am really grateful

for the time you gave me and for
this journey that we just started.

I'll see you the next encounter.

Thank you for joining
Inside the Heart Portal.

If these converging voices steered you,
follow, review and pass the echo on.

Until next time, keep shaping memory
into fearless presence and communal art.