The abstract
abstract
The Abstract is a resource for self-investigation & mental health that makes tools for coping and resiliency both accessible and actionable in our everyday lives.
01
"The Abstract is a resource for people to obtain information and insight on mental health along with tools for their own mental health journey. Being able to understand, heal, and act in a healthy way with community is something that can fix many things, if not everything."
— co-founder Daniel Ikejimba Jr., also known as Medulla Ohm Blongata, also known as MOMB.
02
"For those of us who aren't in school or academia, for those of us who are students of life like myself, a lot of the opportunity we have to really think about the deeper questions of life happens after day-to-day interactions. This is what we will investigate together, within The Abstract."
— co-founder Lala Openi Cheung, also known as Openi.
mixed media mental wellness
Our approach to making mental wellness accessible includes offering tools for all our senses: visual, audio, and literary.
our team
MOMB
they/them, He/him pronouns
A first-generation genderqueer Nigerian-American born and raised in Chicago, IL. Originally earning their Bachelor’s degree in Psychology at The University of Texas at Austin, Daniel recently attained their Master’s degree from Hawaii Pacific University in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. Daniel’s theoretical approach blends Choice Theory, Positive Psychology, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy(CBT) with a holistic perspective for healing. Daniel has worked in research labs that conduct studies on learning and memory development in young children, across-cultures, in comparison to chimpanzees, as well as on the concept of hate and its impact on social relationships.
openi
they/them pronouns
For the past decade, Cultural Worker, Designer, and multi-hyphenated Artist Lala Openi Cheung has created designs, films, and spaces for the extended & multifaceted communities in which they live, work, love and grow, as a genderqueer (gnc) 5th-generation San Francisco Bay-bred “American Born Chinese” (ABC).
Openi’s work as a creative strategist is in shifting the dominant narrative by both conceiving of, as well as bringing visual and conceptual execution to, projects that challenge our ingrained perspectives in the ongoing conversation we all have with, and between, self and space.
While their past work has focused on collaborative & inclusive revisioning of contemporary representations of the joy & multiplicity of people of color; their recent work has focused on internal meditations, bridging narratives, asking better questions, and representation amongst and alongside their fellow ABC’s within the larger currents tessellating and succeeding in the undoing of cultural and humanitarian erasure.