HEALING,
AND LEARNING
THROUGH THE ARTS
"Healing must be understood as the restoration of a person’s imaginative capacity." – Levine
In South Africa, students are faced with circumstances that deeply affect their psycho-social wellbeing and sense of safety. We believe many schools do not have the resources to support learners holistically and address these underlying barriers to education and learning. The arts have proven to be a powerful tool to address and start to heal these challenges faced by students, and yet, the arts are often one of the first subjects to be removed from schools as a result of a lack of resources.
The Space to Breathe education programme is an initiative that has been designed to explore the ways in which arts and the creative process can empower youth.
Thirty grade 8 to grade 10 learners from disadvantaged and under-resourced schools in the surrounding Stellenbosch area will be invited to join us Fridays after school, on a 10-week programme, with the intention to enhance students’ learning capacity by creating an environment where they are able to explore, create and play. We believe the best learning occurs through experience and interaction with the environment; therefore, the programme will engage the learners in all the art forms: visual arts, music, dance and drama, and learners will be invited to interact with different exhibition sites. Here, they will gather found objects, play and interact with different spaces, drawing on the environment for learning and understanding how to integrate these learnings into their daily lives.
In our country, where the reality is that trauma is often the norm in children’s lives, art provides a non-threatening medium for children to work through difficult challenges. A large component of this programme will be the healing nature of arts and using this as a way to address the hidden psycho-social barriers to education in South Africa. The programme will therefore be specifically designed to offer containment, emotional regulation, self-expression and reflection, as well as the opportunity to simply connect and have fun.
To achieve this, we want to intentionally shift away from the traditional approach to arts education and move towards an approach that is not concerned with artistic ‘skills’ or the aesthetics of what is created but, instead, emphasises the power of the creative process in and of itself.
We strongly believe all children are innately creative and deserve a safe and containing space to develop this creativity, to make a mess and to make mistakes.
We want this programme to be child-centred and collaborative so that mutual learning can occur between the learners and facilitators. We strongly believe that the learners are the experts of their own lives and already possess the knowledge of what they need. The arts have a magical way of drawing on the individual’s innate knowledge and wisdom, which will allow the learners to collect resources for resilience and self-regulation from their own art. Learners can use the process of creation to ground themselves, to reflect and understand themselves better. In this way, we hope that the programme will be empowering to the learners who join us, giving them agency over imagining and shaping their own solutions as well as crafting their own futures.
In addressing challenges that learners face, a deficit-based approach is often followed, focusing on what is wrong or what learners lack. A key element to creating an empowering programme is leading with a strengths-based approach instead. Research shows that core strengths can be fostered through art.
In line with the theme of the 2025 Triennale, an increased sense of creativity, spontaneity and flexibility will allow children the opportunity to explore and ‘rehearse’. A willingness to be flexible and spontaneous means being vulnerable and willing to take a risk, fail, and try again.
Therefore, an absolutely key ingredient to this programme will be upholding a sense of consistency and containment for the learners throughout the 10 weeks – something that is often lacking in the uncertain and unreliable environments many South Africans face.
The learners will be with the same group of learners and the same facilitators for the entire programme so that they are able to build connection and trust. We will also prioritise having consistent starting and ending rituals for our programme, which will be designed to incorporate grounding and breathing exercises. The intention is to create a space that is contained and consistent, so learners feel safe enough to explore, express themselves freely and, most importantly, have fun!
Our hope with this programme is to develop the learners’ capacity to cope with stressors in their lives and instil a sense of hope and wellbeing, as well as to demonstrate that creative development is critical to child development and how incorporating arts-based methodologies into schools is vital for enhancing learning.
These three competencies lead to better learning outcomes through the development of:
TRAINING AND
UPSKILLING
The Stellenbosch Triennale (ST) is a wonderful platform to give both young or currently unemployed people an opportunity to get work experience or be upskilled while earning a stipend. For the 2025 ST, we put out a call for applications from people wanting to be involved in the creative industries and, from these applications, a group of facilitators is selected and trained. Some are trained as facilitators to assist in the education programme; some are given the skills to provide tours of the exhibitions for visitors; and some become involved in the event planning and administration. In a country where the unemployment rate is crippling, we are passionate about using the ST platform to provide valuable work experience and foster new skills. With this comes renewed confidence and hope, and we are often asked to provide references for future job opportunities.
The education facilitators will work closely with the education programme directors to provide support and assistance during the ST 10-week curriculum cycle. They will learn valuable skills, including the basics of trauma-informed education practices and emotional first aid. Very often the facilitators receive as much (if not more) education as the young students following the curriculum.
Art tourism is a booming industry, and the facilitators who receive training to become exhibition guides obtain valuable work experience in this field, which can be included in their resumes. They are often inspired to study further in the tourism field or start their own small businesses.