Art Therapy, Human Rights and Freedom of Expression

This article talks about the concept of art therapy and how it can become a therapeutic tool in complicated trauma-infused environments and survivors who have been exposed to gender-based violence. It explores ideas that can be practically used in settings with children, migrants, refugees, and survivors. The article also looks into how art and human rights are closely related, and how art should be encouraged as a tool for protest and freedom of expression. As per UDHR’s Article 19 “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression,” self-expression becomes a human right. And to express is to heal.

What is Art Therapy?

Art therapy is psychotherapy that uses creative expression as a therapeutic tool to aid in healing and processing emotions. To express feelings people cannot verbalise, especially for trauma-affected communities like survivors of GBV or refugees, is not a small feat. Emotional expression and processing strengthen the mind and soul, allowing for community support with more access to healing and cultural empowerment. Art therapy allows them to showcase where they come from, think about their roots and find solace in this rich exploration of identity and heritage.

All people need a safe space to express themselves, and this goes especially for people who have silenced themselves and their stories due to their circumstances. To reclaim their voices lost in the experience of trauma, abuse, discrimination or seeking refuge, being given art therapy as a tool to become free becomes paramount. Art therapy allows them not only this but also becomes a source for them to raise awareness about the inequality, violence, and marginalisation they face, promoting understanding and inclusion between diverse societies and communities that know very little. This entire process facilitates healing and the building of solidarity.

Art allows people to look inward, and extract their personal stories and narratives which can be used as visual evidence of human rights issues. In advocacy, public policy, and humanitarian reports at a global scale, these narratives become paramount in influencing policymakers for more compassionate policies. Similarly, these advocacy initiatives and campaigns allow for educational initiatives in promoting critical thinking, exploring human rights issues in depth, using art as their scientific analyses and uncovering layers outside of words and quantitative science. Education in art therapy makes very abstract concepts tangible, where concepts don’t just remain concepts, but real human stories and creative processes that help in perspective-taking and also keeping them memorable.

Art therapy ideas for children, refugees and migrants and GBV survivors

Children, refugees and migrants and survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) need different kinds of art therapies, however, many tools can be adapted as well.

Children engage more with identifying their feelings, through colours, collages, role-playing with making masks of what they feel, or tell stories of their dreams, nightmares, family and friends using drawings. Children can make dreamscapes, where their fantasy world or ‘safe space’ becomes alive.

Refugees and migrants can use art therapies to deposit their journeys from their home countries to their current locations, all the while reflecting on their experiences and being able to share them. Some ideas can include making journey maps, using that to share their stories in a structured manner, or cultural exchanges where everyone in a refugee camp group creates artwork that represents their cultural heritage, traditional symbols, patterns or scenes from their homeland – this will help immensely in cross-cultural appreciation. There can be hope boxes where participants decorate these boxes with their favourite symbols or paintings and put their dreams in the boxes, which makes them look forward to their future. They can make resilience trees, with branches popping out representing different and healthy coping skills they have learnt through the process of fleeing and setting. Here, they could also make something similar to the AIDS Memorial Quilt and make a large collage with the entire community, writing their names, the values they uphold, their memories of their home country and much more. These interactive art projects can be critical for trauma recovery (Milasan et al., 2023).

For survivors of GBV, art therapy can allow them to create safe space or gratitude journals, which are guided by self-compassion (German), creating drawings to reflect their emotions and fears for their healing. They can create mandalas as a form of meditation and self-care, or make self-portraits that reflect their growth and strengths. This reaffirms a positive self-image and a strong desire to rebuild it for themselves. A few more examples include clay modelling (Malchiodi, 2012), providing them with a sensory outlet for expressing emotions, narrative art (Oatley & Djikic, 2018) which helps articulate and reframe their trauma, healing through nature or ecotherapy (Matise & Price-Howard, 2020) via leaves, stones and sand, which builds a connection with the earth and reduces stress.

Protest Art and Freedom of Expression

Protest becomes paramount when speaking truth in the face of abusive power. It’s a tool for revolution and change, a tool to challenge authority, hold it accountable, and provoke social change that the authority claims to bring but doesn’t. Protest and art come together to create magic in the form of diverse mediums like posters, paintings, murals, graffiti, sculptures, music, dance, theatre, street art and so much more. If it is self-expression as a reaction to social or political issues, it is protest art and it must be protected.

For example, the Rafto Foundation for Human Rights awarded the 2024 Prize to artivist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara from Afro-Cuban, for his resistance against the authoritarian regime through his art. He raised awareness of Cuba’s repression of independent artists and activists and he did that through performance pieces, which eventually got him detained and convicted for “contempt, public disorder and insults to national symbols”. He is currently in prison.

We at MHHRI believe that we can place trust in the exploration of creativity, imagination and art’s power in the healing process and how protest art forms need more appreciation when it aids human rights defenders and groups in need. The persecution of artists and human rights defenders goes against basic rights.