About Me

Jotika Chaudhary Samant EXAT, RSW

Certified Expressive Arts Therapist
Registered Social Worker

pronouns: she her hers

My name is Jotika! I am a Queer, Chronically ill, Femme of Colour, cis woman, I come from a working class family and am a settler on the lands I live. I am also an Interdisciplinary Artist, a Community Organizer, a Social Worker and an Expressive Arts Therapist. I am deeply passionate about the arts as a profound and powerful tool to support a coming back into our bodies. It can be an entry point, a doorway to more self-awareness of our nervous system, to creating greater connection to what safety and soothing and connection feel like in our bodies.

 I work and live as a settler on the unceded lands of the Musqueaum, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. I am grateful to be on these lands and I truly believe that therapeutic work can be part of decolonizing work for the clients I support as well as for myself. For a lot of Settlers of Colour, our lineages, lands, peoples have been colonized/displaced. Artistic practices and connecting back into one’s body can be a way to connect back into our cultures and where one comes from. The arts are a way to delve into what has happened to us and give us new insights into what a decolonizing process is and can be. I am grateful to live and support healing work on these lands.

Art has always been a constant in my life and really it has saved my life. I come into this work as an artist and as someone who has been able to process, understand, and delve into my pain and trauma through practicing different expressive arts.

Expressive Arts has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I have always created (wrote, painted, collaged, danced, sang, etc.) long before I knew why my body and spirit needed too. As a queer person of colour and a survivor of violence, the Expressive Arts helped me process experiences of grief, familial heartbreak, experiences of being first generation in the Diaspora, and feeling disconnect from my homelands, my culture, and ancestral Religion.

Modalities that helped me work through and continue to support me on my healing journey are: movement, writing, drama, zine making, and singing to name a few! Arts based individual therapy and workshops as well as my own creative practices helped me cope, and continue to be a place of comfort and self-reflection.

I’ve participated in many arts based groups, community workshops, as well as various types of education (outside and inside school settings) which have given me a foundation of understanding Intersectional Feminism and what Social Justice means to me. Throughout my 20’s, I grew up in Queer, Trans, Racialized, Sick, Disabled, Chronically Ill and Spoonie communities, and I’ve learned so much about how I want to create arts based therapeutic spaces to support folks. My therapeutic style and the way I hold space for folks is trauma-informed as well as rooted in anti-oppression and Social Justice. As an Expressive Arts Therapist, I have a deep understanding of systemic oppression and I bring that knowledge into the room with folks.

Please see more about my values as an Expressive Arts Therapist here.

Supporting BIPoC & QTBIPOC

I believe we are all inherently creative as QTBIPoC (Queer, Trans, Non-Binary, Black, Indigenous and People of Colour). There is so much that disconnects us from our creativity and from connection to our bodies, so much that can block us from accessing our imaginations, taking up space, and telling our stories.

As BIPoC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) there is so much wisdom inside of our bodies; so many stories, so much honest art, so much magic wanting to be shared & such a depth resilience. BIPoC hold narratives of survival and thriving in our bodies. For BIPoC, the oppression experienced from homophobia, sexism, transphobia, classism, fatphobia, ableism, colonialism, and so much more is exhausting, can be completely debilitating, and can keep us from thriving.

Since 2012, I have organized many arts based community events centering BIPoC and QTBIPoC. I have personally witnessed how profoundly healing and transformational creating art and being witnessed in the process can be. 

BIPoC deserve spaces to express ourselves and access tools for our healing. It is important to me to support centering the voices of folks who are marginalized. I aim to do this in my organizing within QTBIPoC communities and as An Expressive Arts Therapist supporting predominantly BIPoC in my practice. I truly recognize the value in spaces that are created specifically for BIPoC; these spaces have a sacredness and are necessary for survival.

Expressive Arts can be a tool to support a coming back into our bodies. It can be an entry point, a doorway to more self-awareness of our nervous system, to creating greater connection to what safety feels like in our bodies. It is a joy for me to create arts based therapeutic spaces for and with folks.
Learn more about Expressive Arts Therapy and working with me here