“Together we can explore innovative ways to access our own genius.”
ØFFERINGS
“While the creation of art has its own intrinsic value, artists practicing in arts and health have a focus on achieving health and wellbeing outcomes and reducing health inequality for those they work with.”
NATIONAL ARTS AND HEALTH FRAMEWORK
AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT | DEPARTMENT OF INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS | OFFICE FOR THE ARTS
UnitePlayPerform is a long-term arts health initiative breathing joy-filled, celebratory life into traditional art spaces, outdoor public art spaces and local communities through digital and face-to-face workshops and experiences.
A live UPP therapeutic environment is home to a series of custom-designed sculptural artworks called the Playkit. These large-scale pieces are made to be touched, worn, heard, smelt, experienced and activated.
The collection includes kinetic sculptures, inflatable art, sound tools, wearable art, adaptogenics, essences and phantasmagoric masks.
The Playkit has limitless potential, assembled as hybrid habitats and activated as communication tools within Playshop experiences.
The methodology draws on arts’ histories of pedagogical play, psychoanalytical exploration, participatory practice, relational aesthetics, micro-utopias, social activism and alternative mythologies.
DisarmDisruptUnitePlayPerformTransform
THE MASTER METHODOLOGY MOVES PARTICIPANTS THROUGH A TRANSFORMATIVE PROCESS
Disarm
Relax into the sacred safety of art
Focus: Softening our everyday armour and protections, opening up to our environment and opening up to our own experiences
HOW: GUIDED, SENSORY, RELAXING, SOOTHING, ENGAGING THE BODY AS A VESSEL
Disrupt
Shift old thought patterns and behaviours
Focus: Introducing tasks, creating tasks through invitation, challenge, risk and choice
HOW: SPONTANEITY, CHANGE, SAFE BUT NOT TOO SAFE, AGILE ACTIVATION
Unite
Engage intuition, collective intelligence and self-agency
Focus: Connection to others, listening, sharing, vulnerability, being part of something bigger than ourselves, oneness
HOW: COLLECTIVE TASKS, COLLECTIVE CEREMONY, RESPONSIBILITY AND CONTRIBUTION, SHARING, ACKNOWLEDGING, COMMITTING
Play
Activate expansive imagination
Focus: Curiosity, experimentation, improvisation choose your own adventure within a container
HOW: INVITING PARTICIPANTS TO GUIDE THEIR OWN WAY, ANCHORS, LIFELINES, SOFT STRUCTURES, OPEN TASKS, PRACTICE, REPETITION, INTUITION, SELF-GUIDANCE
Perform
Activate new ways through voicing, visualising, expressing, dancing, moving and making
Focus: Intentional practice, forecasting, visioning, enacting the future self within the future community
HOW: INTENTIONAL SIMULATED ENVIRONMENTS, VOICING, EXPRESSING, MOVING, DANCING, COLLECTIVE PERFORMANCE
Transform
Commit, acknowledge and integrate new skills into real life experiences
Focus: Identify shifts, experiences and real time change, integration
HOW: MEANING MAKING, JOURNALLING, RESTING, PAUSING, REVIEWING, DAY DREAMING, CELEBRATING
UPP is a living, moving, interactive practice that invites social engagement, community connection and collective healing.
Meet the founder or head to the shop to find an experience for someone you love.
