EARTDI Research Group Art Application for Social Inclusion. University Complutense of Madrid

The research laboratory L-ABE (Art, Wellbeing and Education) is made up of specialists in the field of art therapy, artistic mediation and creation. L-ABE organises weekly workshop-visits for the general public and specific or special groups, from a participatory, self-reflexive and art-therapeutic approach.
L-ABE proposes participatory activities where the group will end up developing a creative work,
reflecting on everyday disobediences, small but perceptible resistances that, little by little, undermine a
little by little undermine a hegemonic system.

Methodology
The methodology based on art therapy proposes the approach to artistic objects from the connection, intercorporality, experience, projection, symbolisation and taking into consideration the union of perception-cognition-emotion. In this methodology, the creative process becomes a means of knowledge and introspection, at the same time as it brings out the link with others and one's own life project. The artistic object simultaneously embodies the transitional object that allows the connection of the being with the environment and culture. With this approach, each visit-workshop becomes a space of thought-action-emotion-transformation. of joint thought-action-emotion-transformation. In addition, the methodology of the sessions has been based on experiential education, given that we consider that the most valuable seed for generating meaningful learning is in the personal experiences that occur largely through the senses and emotion, together with memory and cognitive capacity. For this reason, the dialogued visits and the art therapy workshops have been the body-mind relationship of the people, favouring dialogue and group reflection so that they can give a personal and social meaning to what they experience in each part of the visit-workshop, discovering information about the works, in order to enrich the experience. The work of art thus becomes a dialectical element that opens up to its knowledge from the creative person -his or her space and time of creation-, but also from the space-time in which the work is perceived, the space-time of the visitors and their own narrative. The work acts as a germ of meaning open to interpretation in the exhibition device, generating new experiences for visitors.
L-ABE is a free activity offered to all audiences, from 6 to 106 years old, on Sundays, and during the week it is offered to groups on demand. These groups include children and adolescents in therapeutic day centres, homeless people, people in prison, victims of gender violence, health workers, among many others. LABE previously agrees objectives and procedures with the intervention team.

ALETHEIA, Arts, Art Therapy, trauma and emotional memory (2016-2019) has begun the study of the improvement of people who have gone through traumatic events through the arts and art therapy. During this research, good practices on Arts &Trauma have been collected and a set of valid indicators for assessing trauma-based art therapy treatment has been designed and implemented. During 2016/2019, the organizers have implemented the following pilot workshops, developing art therapy methodologies:
- two art workshops for migrants and asylums-seekers (40 hours) in 2017 and 2018
- two art workshops for women in vulnerable situations, with dependent children. The first workshop took place from October to December, with two weekly sessions (40 hours). The second workshop took place from February to May (40 hours)
- one art workshop with women victims of sexual trafficking. From February to May 2019 (26 hours)
- one art workshop with women victims of gender violence. From January to May 2019 (34 hours)
- an art workshop for children in vulnerable situations, with a weekly session, from February to May 2018 (25 hours)
- an art workshop for children with learning difficulties resulting from difficult situations 2017/2018 (30 hours)
- one art workshop for adults deprived of liberty 2018 (30 hours)
- one art workshop for children in situations of serious illness 2017 (30 hours)
All results have been disseminated in International Conferences such as British Association of Art Therapist (BAAT), London, July 2019, and European Consortium of Art Therapy Education XVth Conferences, September 2019, among others.