Expressing Trauma Through Therapeutic Art-Based Trauma-Informed Practice With/in a Collective Happening

Abstract

This study explores artmaking as a therapeutic arts- and trauma-informed practice in critical inquiry with others during the collective activity of a happening. Happenings are nonhierarchical environments that offer the exciting, nontraditional promise of taking art off the walls and into a larger context. In the space of mutual respect and creative collaboration of the happening we, as coresearchers, explored the ways in which we observe and make art, and how this prompts us to examine, validate, and share personal experiences of trauma. In addition, we examined how, or if, these activities facilitate empathy and understanding of our experiences, while simultaneously working to prevent retraumatization. We found therapeutic arts and trauma-informed practices successful in promoting critical inquiry, empathy, peer support, collaboration, and encouragement, while visually resymbolizing our experiences of trauma. Based on this experience, this author concludes that educators can utilize these methods to build an empathetic and caring community that helps students and fellow teachers, as well as ourselves, in dealing with traumatic events.