Writing to Wholeness Community Conversation

The project "Writing to Wholeness: Workshops to transform lives and communities" began in January 2020. Throughout the year, we offered writing workshops to survivors of gender-based violence, focused on expression, reflection and community building.

In this Community Conversation, we want to share the process and experience of facilitating the workshops. The workshops gathered survivors to read poetry and prose, write short creative pieces, and share together. Initially, the workshops were hosted in person in partnership with Tubman advocacy services, and due to COVID-19, the rest of the workshops were conducted virtually.

Wendy and Elena will present the methods they used to create the workshop; reflections on the workshop from Wendy and Elena as facilitators; excerpts of writing from workshop participants (provided with the consent of the participants); and reflections from participants gathered in the post-workshop focus group. The Community Conversation will end with a Q&A dialogue led by Wendy and Elena.

Free but registration required through eventbrite: https://tinyurl.com/y7ay4dyw

The Writing to Wholeness workshops were structured and facilitated by an intergenerational team of artists, backed by an advisory board that is diverse in terms of cultural background, expertise, and age. The majority of those involved in the project are survivors, and all have extensive experience as artists and/or as advocates in the movement against gender-based violence.

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.