Marian Liebmann[1]
Picturing truth and reconciliation
Introduction
This is an account of the workshop run at the conference ‘Truth and reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia: Where are we now and where to go?’
The workshop was an opportunity to use simple art materials to express thoughts and feelings about the past and hopes for the future. To encourage people, the introductory description included the words: ‘No artistic ability needed, just a willingness to have a go’.
An art therapy approach
The following are some of the advantages of using art materials to make pictures of events, thoughts and feelings around emotionally charged issues:
a) It can be used as a means of self-expression and self-exploration.
b) Pictures can be used to depict experiences and feelings which are hard to put into words. It can sometimes be a more direct way of expressing things than pages of words.
c) The process of doing art can sometimes help people become more aware of feelings previously hidden from them, or of which they were only partly aware. It can help people become clearer about confused feelings.
d) Discussion of the products can lead to explorations of important issues. The concreteness of the products makes it easier to develop such discussion from them.
e) Using art can sometimes help people release feelings e.g. anger and aggression, and can provide a safe and acceptable way of dealing with unacceptable feelings.
f) It can be used as a means of non-verbal communication. This can be important for those who do not have a good mastery of verbal communication for whatever reason.
g) It can be used to help adults play and ‘let go’.
h) It can help people look at their current situations and ways of making changes.
i) It can provide a context to try out possible futures on paper, without the commitment of reality.
j) If there is a series of sessions, it is possible to look back over the pictures and note themes and developments.
k) It is important for the creator of the picture to find his or her own meanings, rather than have someone else ‘interpret’ them. Other people can ask useful questions to help people elicit their own meanings.
l) Using art requires active participation, which can help to mobilise people. In a group setting, it is a good way of providing the opportunity for everyone to have a voice.
m) It can be enjoyable and this may lead to individuals developing a sense of their own creativity.
Structure of the workshop
The purpose of the workshop was twofold: to provide an experience of a different and non-verbal approach for the participants; and to evaluate this method of working for its possibilities in their situation. So I described the purpose of the different elements for participants as we went along.
The order of the different elements was as follows:
1. Introductions
2. Warm-up activity (Squiggles)
3. Looking at the past
4. Hopes for the future
5. Final comments on the workshop
1. Introductions
In any workshop introductions are important, to help people feel more at ease with each other. It’s also vital to ask for people’s hopes and fears concerning the workshop, as sometimes they have very different expectations from what I am providing. Ground rules are the normal ones for any workshop - listening, respect, confidentiality about personal details, timekeeping, mobile phones, etc. Because sometimes art can bring up unexpected memories, I also ask participants to take responsibility for deciding the level of their involvement, i.e. not to work on such painful memories that they can’t leave them at the end of the workshop. I ask participants if there is anything I’ve missed.
With all the activities there is a time for doing some art work, a time for sharing in pairs and a time to share things in the whole group. Where the exercises are very personal ones, I ask people to share the personal aspects of their picture in pairs, and then share any comments on the process in the whole group. That way everyone gets some time to share personal things but is not exposed by having to do it in a large group. Sharing the process in the larger group also provides some emotional distance from the content shared with partners.
2. Warm-up activity (Squiggles)
Any workshop will include people who have not touched art materials since schooldays and feel quite awkward about using them, alongside people who are practised artists. So the first task is to ‘break the ice’ and find a playful and easy way to engage with the art materials, while at the same time trying to weld people into a group that can trust each other, so that they can engage in and share aspects of their lives with each other. There are many ways of doing this, and my favourite is a game called ‘Squiggles’. Participants work with a partner and, without talking, draw a squiggle, which the partner completes in any way they want. They then reverse roles. They continue in this way for about 10 minutes, then share verbally with each other - by this time there is usually laughter and good interaction all round.
3. Looking at the past
I ask people to do an individual picture about their thoughts and feelings about the past, choosing something that is meaningful to them but not so enormous that they cannot ‘shut it down again’ at the end of the exercise. I ask people to share this in pairs, and then make any comments on the process in the whole group.
This is the most emotionally charged part of the workshop and is deliberately placed between the warm-up activity and the final exercise on hopes. In a longer workshop I would place the most intense exercise about two thirds of the way through the workshop.
4. Hopes for the future
This was another individual picture. I asked participants to include things they personally could be part of and do, to emphasise the empowerment aspect of this - not just hopes that ‘the world will change for the better’. Again it was shared in pairs for the content, and in the whole group for the process.
Another way of doing this might be to work in small groups - say, groups of four - to produce a group picture of hopes. (But this didn’t seem very easy with the layout of the room we had.)
5. Final comments on the workshop
It is important to round off a workshop, either with a discussion of what came out of the workshop for everyone, or a round, such as: ‘One thing I’ll take away with me/ I enjoyed/ found useful, etc….’
Workshop environment
We wore headphones as there was simultaneous translation, and this tended to get in the way of the paper and crayons. The only way we could meet as a group and also do the art work, was to arrange a horseshoe-shape of chairs within a U-shape of tables. Participants then turned round to the tables to do their art work. This meant that during this time they were all facing outwards, not the best way of engendering group togetherness, but the only way we could manage it physically.
Materials
We used flipchart paper and simple art materials. The best materials for workshops which are portable are oil pastels and thick coloured felt-tip or marker pens. However, we had wax crayons instead of oil pastels and the marker pens. Since wax crayons don’t make much impact on flipchart paper, most of these were abandoned in favour of the small number of packets of oil pastels I had managed to bring with me.
The workshop
1. Introductions
There were 11 participants (I had stipulated a maximum of 16, but the smaller number was better), of whom 6 were men and 5 were women. They included: two psychologists, two sociologists, a programme coordinator of a law centre, several Serbian refugees from Krajina - the former Serbian province in Croatia, and people working with refugees. Most people said they couldn’t draw.
2. Warm-up activity (Squiggles)
This seemed to be enjoyed by all, as they said it took them back to their ability to do things. Interestingly one sheet of ‘Squiggles’ showed the theme on several people’s minds - a refugee’s eye in the middle of the paper, looking at some car tyres, which would hopefully return them to their own country.
3. Looking at the past
When we came together to share the process, participants shared the following:
· A woman said she had drawn a large sailing boat, because it reminded her of holidays in Croatia, which were now no longer possible. She said that her sons aged 25 and 19 didn’t even have passports.
· Another woman did positive childhood memories of houses, but was sad that only her mother lived there now.
· A man did a ‘melancholy mood’ with mostly grey wavy lines, plus a few colours here and there. He decided to give it to me at the end of the workshop.
· Another person did a time line/ chronology of their life.
· Another said she made sure only to portray positive memories, as a way of coping with the exercise.
· Someone said the exercise really brought back feelings of insecurity, she could feel them as she was drawing.
People said they felt really emotional. When I asked if anyone wanted to share their drawing in the whole group, no-one did.
4. Hopes for the future
These pictures were much more positive and quite a few people wanted to share them in the larger group:
· A green road, with a ‘pleasant surprise’ over the hill, out of sight of the picture.
· Passing on love (large red heart shapes) and apples (pictures of large green apples) to her children, drawn as large stick figures.
· Red marker pen drawing of a lake in Croatia with swimming, rowing and sailing.
· A stable mountain in an insecure landscape - the hope that personal stability would be enough to carry through the difficult times.
· A picture with some grey clouds, plus some sets of bright colours ‘always changing’.
· Black roots and yellow/ orange tree: ‘From black roots hopefully can come something good.’
· Picture in two halves: the bottom half in red (blood) with a stick figure and arrows pointing down at the past; the top half in blue with a stick figure and arrows pointing up and forward to the future.
· Map of the Krajina, with towns marked in multicoloured circles, and three faces: blue (Serb), yellow (Croat), green (Muslim), then alongside these three houses in blue, yellow and green, signifying that everyone would have a house to live in.
5. Final comments on the workshop
Participants said they had enjoyed the workshop. They were surprised at how doing the art work had brought up so many feelings. They said that doing the art work and sharing it with each other had brought them closer together as a group.
The thing that I noticed was how few problems they had in expressing themselves through art. Everyone got absorbed in their drawings very quickly, and seemed to find it a relief to be able to express things in another medium than words. Even though time was quite short, everyone seemed able to do something within the time available.
Conclusion
Even in such a short workshop, it seemed that it was possible to share difficult areas of the past, and move on to looking at hopes for the future. The use of art materials seemed to facilitate the expression of aspects difficult to put into words. There seems to be potential for extending this method.
Yet it is not without its dangers, if used with a vulnerable group of people, or in an insecure situation, or in an insensitive way. It could open doors which are difficult to shut again. The ability of art to bring up memories and emotions is both its strength and its risk.
[1] art therapist and mediator from the UK, brings these backgrounds together for her workshops on themes of conflict, which she has been running for ten years. She was director of Mediation UK for four years, and is author/editor of several books on art therapy and on mediation, including ‘Mediation in Context’ and ‘Arts Approaches to Conflict’. She is currently involved in a restorative justice project in the juvenile justice system in Serbia and Montenegro. E-mail: