Mapping health

The participants took part in several group activities to explore themselves and made their own body maps with partners. To help them,music was used to create “a space for awareness”.

“Drawing and painting gives a way to express themselves and to explore their memories,feelings,thoughts and ideas. People in this workshop didn’t necessarily have to talk if they didn’t want to,though it helped to have a picture to tell people about,” says Sekhar,who is an Original Movement Therpaist and uses art and movement as therapy.

Body Mapping allows participants to externalise emotional experience. Art,according to Sekhar,is a fun,playful way of expressing one’s feelings. Art is about looking,taking chances and experimenting-making magic. “Visual language is a way to entertain communication between people,if people look at their own drawings and hear how other see it can help to see things in new ways,” she adds.

Sekhar sees her own role as that of a facilitator and says,“I like to think I was able to create a welcoming,safe,quiet space for the participants to be able to explore and introspect. My role involved being there with the participants,to hold onto uncomfortable moments as well encourage them to be able to try and go deeper into their creative exploration – whether it be the body map art piece or their movement.”

(Sekhar regularly organises such workshops and therapy sessions as part of her Original Movement Therapy (OMT) initiative in the city. Further information can be found on the OMT website.)