Christine de Brenni
BIO:
Christine has always worked in healthcare in some capacity. She began her journey with mosaics almost 15 years ago, taking a week-long mosaic workshop with Catherine Thouroude-Juge in France. As it happened, Catherine was also an art therapist, so Christine accompanied Catherine to one of her Art Therapy sessions in which Catherine employed mosaic making. Since that time Christine has facilitated various art as therapy programs and projects where the medium and process used has been mosaic making. These programs have predominantly been in aged care, and mainly with people living with dementia. She has also conducted a range of community workshops. Christine continued developing her own mosaic skills taking Master Classes with Giulio Menossi in Udine, Italy and InThree Mosaico (Rosanna Fattorini, Marco Santi and Beatrice Serre) in Gallipoli, Italy.
In the last few years, Christine has pursued a slightly different path, just completing a Master of Dance Movement Therapy through the University of Auckland. This left her little time for mosaics; however, she feels drawn back to mosaics both for herself and others. She also sees similarities between the two creative arts, especially in their ability to bring healing. Her Masters’ thesis revealed similar issues as well. One area which is rich for future research is the healing aspects and processes of both these art forms. Christine, as a researcher, believes that practitioners are being called to look more deeply, both forward through neuroscience and related sciences, and back to the roots of their art form.
PRESENTATION: ‘Beyond the Metaphors: Mosaic & Social Prescribing’.
Mosaics are often used as metaphors for life. In this presentation, Christine will delve beyond the metaphors, particularly those used by mosaic artists such as Catherine Thouroude-Juge and Giulio Menossi, and explore how the process of mosaic making can enhance our quality of life. She will introduce the concept of “Social Prescribing” or “Arts on Prescription” and how mosaic art, as one of the creative arts could be part of this. Christine sees “revolution” in mosaic artists advocating for their art in “Social Prescribing” and then working together to implement programs or projects within their communities.