Workshop: Working with Conflict through Visual Mediation

Conflict is an emotive subject, currently occupying much space. This workshop was about finding new ways to look at it, using arts media. It started with an exercise on people’s first reaction to the word ‘conflict’. The main exercise asked participants to draw/paint a conflict in their lives or well-known to them and share these with a partner. Participants then made another picture for their partner, based on the same elements, but making slight changes that might suggest a different way of looking at things. This was based on the idea of mediation, in which a third party helps two parties in conflict to see things in a different way, without changing the situation materially, but emphasizing elements that may have escaped the notice of the parties in conflict. Partners then gave each other the picture they have done for them, and discussed the differences. Keywords: animal metaphors, communication (all the relevant words are in the title – conflict, mediation, visual)