Many cultures have used art and creative expression as a means to connect different groups and create a sense of community. Through art, we are able to express the inexpressible when words are not sufficient by using our creativity and imagination to work through painful memories. The French painter Georges Braque once said, “Art is a wound turned into light.” This light can enable survivors of violence to heal from their trauma and connect with other survivors.

Last June, HealthNet TPO hosted a webinar about the ‘Creative State of Mind’ where speakers discussed the ways in which creative arts can improve mental health and wellbeing. HealthNet TPO staff member and award-winning poet and author Ade explored the importance of dancing, music, and crafts in South Sudan for reducing ethnic tensions and fostering a sense of belonging within local communities. More specifically, clinical psychologist and founder of the Common Threads Project, Rachel Cohen focused on the art of sewing as a catalyst for the healing process. Finally, artistic director Feri de Geus uses dance and theatre to encourage behavioural changes and shine a light on societal issues in Burundi.

Watch the full webinar below.

HealthNet TPO’s mental health and psycosocial support consultant, Andrea Carolina Ardila del Toro explains the benefits of dance as therapy for women and men in Colombia.  

“Dance Movement Psychotherapy (DMP) has its roots in modern dance, aiming to express human experiences through movement. It takes the therapeutic effects of dance, creative movement, improvisation, interpersonal growth within group interactions and integration of non-verbal and verbal communication. DMP allows the integration of body, mind, emotions and spirit. It enables the possibility to explore alternatives to move with the body as a powerful metaphor to find creative strategies to move through life. DMP enhances body awareness and its messages, allowing the individual to know themselves in a whole, complex and integrative perspective.  

With Dance Movement Psychotherapy we can work to strengthen personality along with relationships with oneself, others and the world. Moving with others gives a sense of strength and security, empathy, sense of identity, experiencing the impact on each other, among others. Embodiment is a key process in DMP where there is an acknowledgment of the non-neutrality of the bodies, with the socio-political tensions underneath the inter and intrapersonal relationships. Therefore, working through the body, with other bodies, implies a process of recognising the body-politics which shape our mental, emotional and physical selves and inform our ethical values. In that sense, the process of intersubjectivity has room through the body itself to attune with each other. 

With Dance Movement Psychotherapy we give ourselves the permission to play, to move freely, to stay still, to talk or communicate in other ways, to expand the paths to approach conflicts, to hold oneself and others, to set boundaries and many other creative possibilities, meeting each other through movement.” 

Bullerengue is a traditional musical genre and dance from the Caribbean Region of Colombia and the Darién Province in Panama. It is sung and preserved primarily by elderly women, accompanied by local artisan drums. Yurelquis Acosta, from María la Baja Bolívar and leader of the Terapia Bullerenguera initiative, who was nominated for the national human rights award in 2001, uses Bullerengue as a way to heal the wounds left by the conflict. Yurelquis explains that Bullerengue therapy consists of music, dance and spoken word, that seeks to highlight ancestral culture, heal trauma and transform lives. Women and children who have been victims of the conflict participate and through these sessions they work on the ancestry and collective memory as a way to achieve non-repetition of the violent acts that occurred during the Colombian internal conflict and construct a sustainable peace. The programme's goal is to transform lives from daily life experiences, promote healing processes, transform spaces and enforce women's rights. 

The Women Weavers of Dreams and Flavours of Peace of Mampuján or more known as the Mampujan’s weavers, are a group of 33 displaced women who helped communities in the Montes de María (region of Colombia) overcome the traumas of war. In 2006 they started to meet to sew tapestries and in 2015, the national government awarded them the National Peace Prize.

Similarly, the Common Threads Project is an organisation that provides psychological care to survivors of trauma through the art of sewing in countries around the world. Rooted in a neuroscientific and socio-cultural understanding of trauma, the initiative allows women to come together in groups and sew their stories into cloth. This enables them to stitch the unspeakable atrocities that they have experienced and benefit from the mental support within the sewing groups.  

 “The idea of making something beautiful out of a horrifically painful experience brings a sense of mastery.”  - Rachel Cohen, Founder of the Common Threads Project 

Find out more about Rachel's work in our webinar.