Sustaining the Self Workshop with Marie Brett

Sustaining the Self:  Online event to support self-care among the arts and health community, Tuesday 23 June.

Create and Artsandhealth.ie are delighted to announce details of a virtual workshop for the arts and health community on Tuesday 23 June at 10.00am.  Entitled Sustaining the Self, this online workshop will be led by artist Marie Brett and is designed to support self-care among those working in arts and health, particularly in the context of the seismic shift in practice since the introduction of Covid 19-related restrictions.  Open to arts practitioners, healthcare professionals and anyone working in arts and health who feel this will be beneficial to them, Sustaining the Self is free but registration is essential.  Those who register to attend will receive login details by email.  Sustaining the Self is organised by www.artsandhealth.ie/ Waterford Healing Arts Trust (WHAT) and Create, the national development agency for collaborative arts, and is funded by the Arts Council and the HSE.

Sustaining the Self follows the sold out workshops led by Marie Brett and supported by Create, at Waterford Healing Arts Trust in 2019.  This year’s workshop will address the particular challenge of the current climate and will offer a creative, self-reflective space for those currently working within arts and health contexts who would like to avail of a supportive, non-judgemental, safe space to take ‘time out’ and participate in an honest, nourishing consideration of their work.  Drawing on Marie’s extensive experience and knowledge, participants will explore the concept and practice of self-reflection, assess their current ways of working, articulate their ambitions and fears, and identify current and potential supports.

At 2.30pm that afternoon, Marie Brett will host Sustaining the Self: Close Up, an additional workshop, which aims to offer a deep level of support to a small group of practitioners with significant experience in arts and health, with follow-up tutorials the next day.  These tutorials will be for two participants at a time, who will be linked together to discuss a relevant matter which has meaning and significance to them.  The paired practitioners will then undertake to stay in contact – by phone, email, post, video chat etc – connecting once a week for two months, the priority and content of their exchanges to be determined by themselves.

Additional opportunity for offline support
Recognising that internet access is not universally available for a variety of reasons, a limited number of Sustaining the Self Toolkits, created by Marie Brett, will be available by post as an alternative to participating in the workshop online.  Anyone interested in receiving this package should contact Waterford Healing Arts Trust on 086 8381625.  Please note: Due to limited availability, these will be offered on a first come first served basis.

Marie Brett is a visual artist working with digital, sculptural and more recently live event media with a social practice that is trans-disciplinary and utilises collaborative and participatory methods.  Conceptually, human trauma is a core theme of Marie’s work and she often works in healthcare contexts with a special interest in hidden or stigmatised Irish experience. Recent work includes an international global justice commission exhibited at the European Parliament; a collaborative project exploring trafficking and modern-day slavery; and a performative work exploring capacity legislation with dementia carers, brain disease advocates, dancer/choreographer Philip Connaughton and partner organisations the Alzheimer Society of Ireland, IMMA and Poetry Ireland.  A graduate of Goldsmiths, London University, Marie holds MA and BA visual arts degrees and has received numerous awards for her practice.  Her work is in national and international art collections and she has had writing published in Ireland, the UK and Finland.