Symposium - Reciprocity and care in process: Exploring approaches to trauma informed practice in creative contexts.

Reciprocity and care in process: Exploring approaches to trauma informed practice in creative contexts.

A mini-symposium looking at professional practices in engaged and participatory creative contexts.

📆 Wednesday 25th of November 2026

⌚️ 9.30am – 12.30pm

📺 Online

Register: https://www.cognitoforms.com/ScottishArtistsUnion/ReciprocityAndCareInProcessSymposium

The symposium is an exploration of a sustained creative practice working with women with experience of domestic abuse and sexual abuse; Cat Meighan will share work and reflections as she comes to the end of a two-year Creative Scotland funded project. In setting this context, we will look to trauma informed practices, artists embedded in community, the place of research, connections with wellbeing outcomes, and socially engaged practices.

This event will feature time to share in smaller peer groups around experiences of working in community settings, barriers and challenges in community work and look to learning and development through shared experiences.

We will then hear from two other creative practitioners, Catherine Cartwright and Sarah Cole, about their practice and context before a panel discussion. Both practitioners have experience of working in trauma informed socially engaged creative contexts.

Everyone is welcome, whether or not you have experience working in trauma informed settings, as the material and learnings will be transferable across many contexts.

Coinciding with the UN 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, and taking place on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, this symposium is a space to share, learn and contribute for all, regardless of gender.

Bios of speakers:

Dr Catherine Cartwright

Catherine Cartwright is an artist and researcher. Her PhD was on trauma-informed community arts practice, with a focus on working with survivor-victims of gender based violence (University of Exeter 2024). www.catherinecartwright.co.uk

Sarah Cole

Sarah Cole is an artist who works with others. She is Reader in Social Art Practice at Central St Martins, University of the Arts London, and a BA Fine Art Pathway Leader. Her practice as an artist, educator and project manager employs strategies for participation and community engagement, exploring lived experience through speculative workshops and material encounters. For the past ten years she has collaborated with film-maker Annis Joslin, developing long-term projects that lead to co-created video, drawings, performances, screenings and installations. For this symposium, Sarah will present three projects made with women in different contexts; informal carers, survivors of domestic abuse, and the ‘Grief Goddesses’, reflecting on the ways she uses practice to develop and hold these complex conversations with diverse groups of people.

Cat Meighan

Cat Meighan is a socially engaged contemporary visual art practitioner and producer who works on peer-led projects, workshop facilitation, research, teaching, coaching and mentoring. Cat’s work within communities brings about opportunities for discourse, action, and autonomy in creative projects for communities’ continued benefit and development. www.catrionameighan.com

This event is generously supported by Scottish Artists Union as part of their external learning programme, and Creative Scotland. Scottish Artists Union Learning Programe is funded by Scottish Union Learning

Image from Cat Meighan.