Workshops
Using Mask Making for Self-Exploration and Group Affirmation
Workshop Presentation Michal Sela-Amit, Anne Katz
This workshop introduces mask making as an effective technique for eliciting self-exploration and group sharing in diverse groups of people and in various settings. The use of the expressive arts in this exercise focuses on being in touch with one’s current emotions, past memories, ideas and self-perceptions. Mask making has the potential of bringing awareness and expression of new aspects or layers of the self (Quinlan, 2015). Toward this end, the workshop participants will engage in creating and sharing their masks, as well as their feelings and thoughts with other participants. The process of provision of affirming feedback to each of the group participants and other key components in designing the mask creation activity will be discussed. This includes communicating clear instructions, helpful leader’s behaviors that elicit sharing, and the encouragement of discussion in an atmosphere of trust that is free of judgement. Also, the importance of keeping an eye on time, fostering sharing, and encouraging respectful and affirming group feedback to promote self-growth and community building will be explained and demonstrated. This exercise that promotes the use of art by all is transferable to a number of settings including educational institutes, self-growth groups, workshops and recreational settings. Whether used as an end in itself or as part of a longer process of self-development and exploration, this mask making exercise holds the potential for eliciting creativity, self- discovery and sharing in a supportive, affirming and inclusive community.
How Do We Build Trust: Creating Spaces for Intergenerational Learning and Socially Engaged Art
Workshop Presentation Patrick Rowe
Trust is crucial when creating spaces for inter-generational learning and socially engaged art making. Trust is crucial when we work collaboratively with young people, students, adults and seniors. Trust is particularly important when our shared work confronts systems of power, oppression and inequity. This participatory workshop will focus on techniques for building trust and raising consciousness in an inter-generational learning environment inside and outside of an institutional context. Participants will be guided through a series of Theater of the Oppressed activities, engage in collaborative drawing and writing, and learn techniques for peer mediation and conflict resolution. Meeting people half way, working cooperatively, allowing for projects to develop over long periods of time, and taking time to reflect and evaluate with participants are all central elements in socially engaged art and pedagogy. In order to achieve these goals we need to build trust.
