The world offers itself in the making of collage

Paper presentation at Nordic Art Therapies 2018 conference
We will unfold why and how we find collage relevant in clinical and supervision practice; making collage offers opportunities to combine or juxtapose “found” images or objects, whereby new meanings emerge.

First, we review theory relevant for our understanding of collage, including critical art movements (e.g. Dada), arts-based research and diverse theoretical approaches to arts therapies (dialogic, phenomenological).

Secondly, we present cases from an arts therapy group at Oasis, a Danish treatment center for refugees, where we have developed a method of working with collage in the treatment of multi-traumatized refugees. We will show how it opens new possibilities for dissociated clients to reconnect with the world.

Thirdly, we will share experiences from our creative processes of making collage in an arts-based peer inspiration/supervision group in Copenhagen.

In the final discussion we aim to integrate theory and practice and reflect on our insights so far.
We suggest that collage as process offers unique “flux” spaces between material, sensory and emotional worlds. It can thereby help us dissolve habitual ways of composing images – and open to diversity - in our ways of connecting with and being in the world.