Creating from lived experience

This workshop exists at the intersection of art and therapy. It is for artists working in any discipline who want to mine their lived experience as creative material and access it through the body.

The creation of art can be a therapeutic process. Unpacking what is meaningful to us is where we find authentic inspiration. Your life is your material. Your body knows where it's hidden.

Mornings are embodied practice—movement methodologies including associative dance, memory mining, and improvisation to connect with the body as source. We access the subconscious, explore the relationship between motion and emotion, and uncover the memories stored in our physical landscape.

Afternoons are yours—facilitated work time on your own bespoke project with guidance, mentorship, and community support. Come with an idea, a work in development, or just your curiosity.

We work with a cyclical five-stage creative methodology:

1. Gathering - collecting material, sensation, memory

2. Organising - structuring, sorting, finding patterns

3. Inventing - creating, experimenting, taking risks

4. Presenting - sharing, performing, making visible

5. Cleansing - releasing, reflecting, completing

We explore the physiology of creative practice—procrastination, motivation, creative blocks. We talk about the equal odds principle: collecting enough failures increases your likelihood of breakthrough. This is an invitation to fail in a supportive environment, to try new things and be held in the vulnerability of being seen throughout the creative process.