Healing Ways: Art with Intent Symposium in Melbourne – call for abstracts

The role of art in promoting emotional healing and wellbeing in Aboriginal communities
19–20 September 2014, Melbourne.

This symposium seeks to explore the role of art in promoting emotional healing and wellbeing in Aboriginal communities. It will examine a range of artistic and cultural practices taking place in Aboriginal communities across Australia. Art and related cultural practices will be examined as a source of cultural resilience and strength, as well as a medium to address the individual and intergenerational effects of trauma experienced by Aboriginal people throughout a history of colonisation and dispossession. 

Artists, art workers, art therapists, mental health practitioners, curators, scholars, community workers and cultural leaders are invited to share their stories of using art for healing in Aboriginal communities and may consider the following themes:

Differing cultural perspectives of emotional wellbeing and healing
Historic and contemporary Aboriginal arts practice
The role of art centres
Community art/cultural projects
Art therapy as a modality
Cultural and emotional education using art
Connection with ceremony

Download call for abstracts [PDF flyer]: http://healingways.daxcentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/HealingWays_CallForPapers28Mar.pdf

Closing date is 14 May 2014