This academic year 2021-22 marks the celebration of the 50th anniversary of art therapy, training, professional development and research at the University of Hertfordshire.

Conference day 1: Art Therapy: Innovation in the Arts
Friday July 22nd 2022

The programme of events includes online lectures, on campus lectures, workshops and masterclasses

Keynote speakers: Shaun McNiff and Professor Helen Payne PhD
The purpose of the arts therapy conference is to provide a platform to share the innovative use of the arts in practice in the arts therapies focusing on art-based practice, art-based supervision, and art-based research. The day will include lectures, workshops, and masterclasses focusing on the interconnections between different art forms and media and different theoretical frameworks used to support creativity and health. The themes of the day include:
• Methods of integrating different art forms
• The central importance of body, movement, and expression
• The use of response art in its different formats
• Working alongside and co-production.

The day will consider how arts methods can be extended into research, developing new approaches, and evaluation outcomes in the arts, therapies, health and learning.

Conference day 2: Environmental Arts Therapy
Saturday July 23rd 2022

The programme of events includes online lectures, workshops and masterclasses delivered by art and drama therapists who have further training in environmental arts therapy.

Keynote speakers: Ian Siddons Heginworth, Vanessa Jones & Gary Nash

Environmental arts therapy is by its very nature an integrative creative arts therapy, one where we use all of the arts to further therapeutic intention. Through the very act of moving outdoors we experience all of our senses. Creative expression may involve dramatic enactment, role-play, sculpting, or art making with natural materials, storytelling, and the use of bodywork through movement, sound, rhythm, and the voice, all held and reflected by what we find in nature.

The purpose of the conference is to provide a platform to share the methods, approaches, theory base and research in this area of innovative integrative arts therapy practice. 

The themes of the day include:
• Nature’s metaphoric language
• Core skills when working outdoors
• Sensory play outdoors with children
• Groups work, adults and seasonal themes

The day will allow us to experience what happens when we take our art, drama, music, and movement therapy practices outdoors.

Contact Name: Nick Thomas
Address: School of Creative Arts, College Lane, Hatfield, AL10 9AB, UK
Telephone number: +44(0)1707 285327
Email address: ad-shortcourses@herts.ac.uk