Contemplative Curriculum Design

Community Art

Discovering the commonalties of experience amongst the diverse groups of people that I have worked with over the past thirty years has been both a humbling and rewarding experience. Most recently I developed and presented creative process for self development programmes, with a range of people recovering from mental illness and drug and alcohol dependency. It was a privilege to work with these individuals who taught me so much about living with difference, communication and the many and varied ways that we can learn.

Patricia developed and implemented creative process for self development classes in Tauranga and Auckland, New Zealand from 1999 - 2005. She began this work with a group of school children in an artist in residence program at a small country school in Tauranga. She then worked with young people recovering from their first experience of serious mental illness at Tauranga Hospital. After moving too Auckland she worked with individuals recovering from drug and alcohol addiction in the Starters and Dual Diagnosis programs at Odyssey House; in the Richmond Fellowship Activities Program, using mixed media and video, with people recovering from mental illness; at Toi Ora Live Arts on creative process and video programs for people living with mental illness; with differently-abled people at the Crippled Children's Society of New Zealand and individuals living with brain injury at New Dawn Trust.

Drawing from Rogerian counselling theory, which she learnt through LifeLine and Samaritans training and elements of Psychosynthesis, (the psychotherapeutic system developed by Roberto Assagioli), her meditation and yoga practice and experiences from her personal self-development and environmental arts practice, she developed unique programs using a wide range of meditative and movement practices and art mediums. Some of the training she employed was, Year 1 Psychosynthesis, celebrant and ritual training, workshops in the Alexander Technique, Gabrielle Roth's 5 Rhythms, Anna Halprin's Life/Art Process, (the Tamalpa Institute), Authentic Movement, Eurhythmics (Steiner Movement Therapy), Bhuto dance, Contact Improvisation, Insight, Theravada and Tibetan Buddhist meditation and classes in Astanga, Hatha, Satyananda and Yoga in Daily Life Yoga.

After working with people recovering from mental ill health and drug and alcohol dependency, she drew from these experiences for her work at the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective, Auckland, New Zealand and in Papua New Guinea where she worked on contract for nine months implementing sexual health education programs with men and women working in the sex industry. In these programs she employed role-playing techniques, song and drawing to assist with the learning process.

In this work she was primarily influenced by Assagioli's concept of disidentification and the Process Art and Fluxus movements (particularly the work of Joseph Beuys). Disidentification is one of Assagioli's seven core concepts, where in ideal states the individual is not identified with any particular pattern of feeling, thought, and behaviour but can move amongst them. They are clearly distinct but not separate from the various contents of their inner world (Firman, Gila, 2007). These states can be achieved through meditative practices which Patricia included in her courses. Her approach to these courses was directly influenced by Beuys and other Fluxus artists, who proposed a radical erosion of the boundaries of art, bringing aspects of creative practice outside of the institution and into the everyday. Beuys stressed the need for an expanded conception of art in which every human being, in their 'inherent freedom, creativity and transformative power', is potentially an artist. (Social Sculpture, Oxford Brooks University, retrieved from the world wide web 25/04/2010, http://www.social-sculpture.org/the-territory.htm:1)

Some of the theoretical themes which underlie her work can be found in the inaugural 'themed paper', which she was commissioned to write in 2000 for the Mental Health Foundation, New Zealand, titled: The Potential of Creative Arts as a Medium for Mental Health Promotion in Schools: An Exploration of Meaning Making, Belonging and Identity Using Creative Processes. It can be ordered at www.mentalhealth.org.nz.