This past month Kyiv Collage School, the Art Therapy Lab, and the School of Visual Arts collaborated on a three-week international special project series. The ‘Virtual Wellness Retreat’ focused on the therapeutic use of collage with working artists primarily from Ukraine. The SVA art therapy students facilitated this ongoing virtual workshop with the coordination and supervision of Julia Volonts, LCAT, ATR-BC, also the founder of @arttherapylabofficial.

Through the collaboration of communities, participants were brought together not only from Ukraine but from all around the world to engage in the wellness workshop. The participants had the opportunity to experience art as a therapeutic medium while utilizing their artistic backgrounds as a tool. The series included a new prompt each week that builds upon the last. By the end, the members had created themselves as a creature, a safe space for the creature to dwell, and integrated the creature and its safe space into a story. Members worked within the metaphor to express and process complex emotions.

The workshop fostered creative expression, a sense of community, and self-exploration through the lens of play. The group had the chance to reflect on what their creature was like, what elements to include in their safe space, and the development of their work over the course of three artmaking sessions.

No results found