Developing Trust

and Community

Betty

The sharing and depth of sharing at the beginning and end of each workshop session and in the private Facebook group supported the trust, sense of community and peer support that were central features of the project’s success.

Relaxation and

Reflection

Elizabeth

Taking time out and doing meditation and process art provided the necessary space to relax and reflect. Both are important in the Meditative Process Art method as they help artists to become inwardly focused, a necessary step to support the realisations that follow.

Heightened

Somatic Awareness

Diane

The meditative and process art used in the workshop sessions resulted in the heighted somatic awareness that supported artists to become internally focused. This is an important feature of the Meditative Process Art method because both practices offer access to the memories, feelings and somatic responses that are ‘brought to the surface’ and manipulated to gain insight and autonomy.

Changing the

Story, Gaining

Agency

KC

Reworking and symbolizing imagery by flipping or changing its meaning was empowering and provided agency to many of the artists.

Symbol Making

and Embedding

a Sense of

Strength and Pleasure

Betty

Identifying, symbolising and working with imagery of things that represent, or provide a sense of strength and pleasure, resulted in the integration of the felt sense of strength and pleasure.

Reworking the

Past

Shontaiya

While it was challenging for some of the artists to rework imagery from around the time of their diagnosis, many also spoke of the benefits of this practice.

Developing a

Personal Symbol

Language

Lisa

Turning personally meaningful images into symbols and working with them across a number of arts works offered a way to express emotion, embed feelings of strength and pleasure and tell new stories.

Realisation

and Change

Katherine

Experiencing the Meditative Process Art method’s cycles of reflection, creation, realization and application led to new awareness and change.

HIV Does Not

Define Me

Agatha

Creating and working with images of strength and pleasure highlighted the multiple aspects of the artists’ lives, and how they are much more than their diagnosis.

Art Works

Describe and

Cement Change

Realisations, feelings of strength, pleasure and agency and the release of suppressed emotion that occurred in the process of art making were described and embedded in the final art works. These works then remained as reminders of what had occurred in the process art.

Abbie