Join Creative Forces®: NEA Military Healing Arts Network for a webinar exploring how creative arts therapies can help heal war-time trauma. The webinar will focus on the National Endowment for the Arts’ recent online exhibition Creative Forces: Healing the Invisible Wounds of War. Special guest Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma, will join a discussion with Captain Robert Koffman (Navy, retired), creative arts therapists and veterans who have participated in the Creative Forces program and contributed artwork to the exhibition. American Sign Language interpretation and closed captioning will be provided.
Participants:
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, Professor of Psychiatry and Trauma Center Medical Director, Boston University
Luis Avila, CPT, US Army and Claudia Avila, contributing artist and spouse
Inga Brown, SSG, US Army (Retired) contributing artist
Liz K. Freeman, Lead Dance/Movement Therapist, Creative Forces, Henry M. Jackson Foundation
Robert Koffman, MD, CAPT Navy (Retired)
Bill O’Brien, Project Director, Creative Forces
About the Exhibition:
Explore Creative Forces: Healing the Invisible Wounds of War, an online interactive exhibition of 45 pieces of visual art, music, and performances by military service members and veterans who are current or former participants in the Creative Forces®: NEA Military Healing Arts Network. The exhibition also includes first-person accounts from the artists about their experiences with creative arts therapies and effects of these treatments on their lives. Read more about the exhibition in the press release.
Creative Forces: Healing the Invisible Wounds of War was originally organized by the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Museum of Health and Medicine—a division of the Defense Health Agency Research and Development Directorate for presentation at the Welcome Pavilion at the REACH at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in March 2020. In response to the limitations of COVID-19, Creative Forces: NEA Military Healing Arts Network created this virtual exhibition of 45 artworks which is now available for all Americans to experience on the Creative Forces National Resource Center.
Creative Forces: NEA Military Healing Arts Network is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the U.S. Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs and the state and local arts agencies that seeks to improve the health, wellness, and quality of life for military and veteran populations exposed to trauma, as well as their families and caregivers. Administrative support is provided by Americans for the Arts and the Henry M. Jackson Foundation.