What's the role of artists in a healthy community?

What does a healthy community look like? And what role do artists have in keeping communities healthy?

Those are the questions MPR News' Marianne Combs put to three artists who work at the intersection of the arts and health. Their responses explored self-awareness, our comfort with mortality and our connections to our cultural heritage.

Marcus Young is an independent behavioral artist and city artist for Public Art St. Paul. He created St. Paul's sidewalk poetry project, and for several years on Earth Day hosted a kite-flying party on Harriet Island in which people would write their wishes on the backs of kites before setting them off into the air. It was called "Wishes for the Sky."

Young says he tries to create work that's at the intersection of mind, body and spirit.