Future Forward Arts: Cultivating Belonging in the Present Moment

Join us for an online gathering that promises to spark creativity, foster dialogue, and deepen your connection to the healing power of the arts!

We are thrilled to invite you to Future Forward Arts: Cultivating Belonging in the Present Moment, an online gathering of art and expressive arts therapists, artists, educators, helpers, and community members exploring how creative practice can foster connection and belonging.

Mark your calendar for Saturday, October 11th, and join us for a day of interactive sessions and workshops. 

🕒 Event Time (by time zone):

7:45 AM – 3:30 PM Pacific Daylight Time

8:45 AM – 4:30 PM Mountain Daylight Time and Central Standard Time

9:45 AM – 5:30 PM Central Daylight Time

10:45 AM – 6:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time

11:45 AM – 7:30 PM Atlantic Daylight Time

12:15 PM – 8 PM Newfoundland Daylight Time

Tickets are available now! As a participant, you are free to choose your sessions and move between virtual spaces that spark your curiosity. Concurrent workshop sessions will take place in breakout rooms during the event.

Get Your Ticket

Saturday, October 11th Morning Schedule

Rewriting the Future: Screenwriting as a Transformative Art Therapy Modality with Nausheen Ahmad

"Rewriting the Future" introduces screenwriting as a therapeutic modality merging narrative therapy with creative expression. Participants will experience the Write Turn methodology through three components: Principles of Story, Mechanics of Screenwriting, and Writers' Room Experience exercises. This workshop demonstrates how screenwriting's elements character development, conflict resolution, and story structure create opportunities for processing trauma, building resilience, and fostering community through collaborative storytelling.

Liminality and Ritual: the Labyrinth as Pedagogy in ExA Education, Research and Practice with Maria-Helena Pacelli and Conly Basham

Welcome to the LAByrinth, an applied practice laboratory space seen through the story of an intercultural co-learning relationship between student and teacher. This arts-based research praxis showcases an emergent co-LAB-orative Expressive Arts pedagogy. Presenters invite participants through an intermodal experiential supported by digital media.

Honouring Trauma Recovery as Hero's Work: An Introduction to the Hero's Journey Trauma-Focused Therapy with Stacey Molengraaf

This foundational workshop introduces the Hero's Journey Trauma-Focused Therapy. It teaches participants to use an affirming and integrative approach to healing complex, relational, and intergenerational trauma, following the twelve stages of the hero's journey.

Building a Sense of Home through Art Therapy with Carmen Oprea

This presentation outlines a case study involving an Indigenous child facing challenges with emotional regulation, peer interaction, and school engagement. Using a trauma-informed and culturally responsive framework, the therapy integrated art-making, sand tray, and puppets to support somatic awareness and internal safety (Porges, 2011). These sensory-based, non-verbal methods enabled the child to process emotional experiences beyond verbal expression (Malchiodi, 2020; Van der Kolk, 2014), while respecting developmental and cultural needs (Atkinson, 2016). Over time, the client demonstrated greater self-regulation, reduced anxiety, and increased agency. The creative process allowed for symbolic integration (Kalff, 2003) and re-engagement with her environment (Porges, 2011).

What Does the Artwork Tell Us about Emotional Ties with Lucile Proulx

This workshop will look at artwork through the eyes of directive, non-directive and projective techniques, that tell the therapist the Emotional Strengths of the clients. A power presentation of research as well as clients art' will demonstrate how attachment and bonding show up in the art metaphors

Food for the Soul and the Body: A Multisensory and Neuropsychological Approach to Art Therapy with Yara (Iryna) Pyrozhok

This presentation introduces a unique method that combines traditional art therapy with food-based art, engaging the senses to support emotional healing. Grounded in neuropsychology, trauma-informed care, and attachment theory, it blends European psychological depth with North American creativity. Activities like Coffee Drawing, Cupcake Decorating, and Chocolate Candy Making foster symbolic expression, emotional regulation, and connection. Suitable for all age groups, this approach offers a playful, accessible way to create meaningful therapeutic experiences using edible materials.

A Place to Belong: Developmental Art Therapy in Early Intervention with Natalie Kang

This workshop introduces a Developmental Art Therapy Framework used in early intervention centres, offering a safe, inclusive space where children can express themselves, regulate emotions, and connect with others. Grounded in creative, affective/motivational, and social/behavioral domains, the framework supports identity-building and belonging through sensory-rich, process-oriented art experiences. Participants will explore tailored interventions for diverse developmental profiles, view case vignettes and child artworks, and engage in a reflective, hands-on art activity that mirrors how belonging is co-created in therapeutic spaces.

Saturday, October 11th Afternoon Schedule

Restoring Voice and Image through Filmmaking in Therapy with Bevan Klassen and Louise Lamothe

For individuals or communities that have been silenced and hidden away, therapeutic video making opens up a dynamic space to be heard, seen, and understood in inspiring ways. Filmmaking is an exciting multi-modal art process where many small choices integrate into a powerful whole to connect us to ourselves and each other. In this hands-on workshop, join Bevan Klassen to explore the theoretical foundations, his experiences and the practical application of video making as an inspiring therapy process. This is a hands-on workshop with capacity to include audience observers. Participants will receive examples along with step-by-step instruction to make their own therapeutic videos, which can facilitate the growth of emotional regulation and awareness, identity development and self-esteem.

The Three Horizons: A Multi-Dimensional Art Therapy Invitation with Virgina Thurston

Explore a new Art Therapy invitation (directive) to try with your clients. After a brief overview of the significance of horizons in human perception, participants will be invited to create three artworks with varying horizon levels (low, medium, high). The results are rich with multidimensional insights. Closing circle for sharing.

Well Actually, Orange isn’t the New Black: Collaborative Effort Redesigning a Women’s Prison Uniform with Chukwuma Udezeh and Jarai Finney

Clothing for many women impacts self-perception and how they are perceived. Empowerment can be achieved through the right combination of clothing. Incoming women in prison go through the dehumanizing process of intake where they are stripped, photographed, documented, and given a uniform and a number. This deprives individuality and community ties. Printmaking demonstrations present collaborative opportunities with designers and art therapists. Women in prison personalizing state-issued clothing promotes reconnection to culture and reestablishes the identity above inmate. Women in prison redesigning uniforms reappropriates the associated stigma. Together, art therapists and apparel designers can facilitate prison uniform redesign to encourage self-empowerment and acceptance.

The Use of Art and Music Therapy in an Intensive Treatment Program for Adults Living with Severe Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) with Linda Chapman and Jill Hedican

Linda and Jill will discuss their experiences of offering Art and Music Therapy within this program, including examples of their clinical work. They will also discuss their on-going research and the overwhelmingly positive client feedback they have received to date.

The Secret Language of Autism: Introducing Creative Congruence Time (CCT) Through Artmaking with Ellen Yang

Join expressive arts therapist, clinical counsellor, and author Ellen for a 90-minute online session introducing her new book, The Secret Language of Autism: Fostering Presence-Based Connection Through Creative Congruence Time (CCT) and Expressive Arts. This presentation offers a gentle overview of Creative Congruence Time (CCT), a presence-based approach to fostering connection with autistic individuals through expressive arts. Ellen will share the heart and purpose behind her book, then guide participants through 1–2 experiential artmaking practices drawn directly from its pages. This is an opportunity to reflect, create, and explore how expressive arts can deepen relational attunement and emotional well-being in neurodiverse care.

On the Inside: Utilizing Art Therapy to Assist Incarcerated Women Throughout Their Re-Identification with Jarai Finney

Through art therapy, clients will explore culture, values, norms, and behaviors through psychoeducation, then express their understanding of enculturation via creative writing and group discussions. They will create and arrange print designs on fabric to reflect institutionalized and non-institutionalized identities. The audience will observe these expressions of acculturation, engage in small group discussions about their own experiences, and create paper dog tags symbolizing their enculturation. After audience members complete their dog tags, they will discuss their creation to provide acculturation. They will select a print they identify with and explain their connection, fostering a sense of recognition, value, and connection with those who are institutionalized.

Group Prompt: Exploring AI Theatre as Expressive Arts Praxis with Amanda Tkaczyk

In this arts-based presentation, I share the story of "Group Prompt", an experimental AI theatre performance where a human performer speaks words generated in real-time by an AI system, embodying the machine's voice while engaging with a live audience. Blending improvisation, co-creation, and algorithmic agency, this format challenges traditional notions of authorship, presence, and empathy in the performing arts. I propose this work as a new and rich format for expressive arts exploration where the human performer becomes a vessel, or "echoborg". Drawing from my experience staging this performance, I outline eight pathways for integrating AI theatre into expressive arts practices. Attendees will leave with ideas for applying AI theatre techniques in clinical, educational, or community-based arts contexts and a renewed curiosity about where creativity begins and ends.

Join Us Saturday, October 11th

The event schedule is subject to minor adjustments prior to October 11th.