Traumascapes Arts Festival 2025 | Language as entrapment or liberation: SEMANTIC study and collage-making workshop

Exploring the connection between the language we use to describe ourselves as people who have experienced trauma and our identities, relationships, and healing processes, the session will include a short presentation of findings from the SEMANTIC study followed by a collage-making workshop on identity and the powers and constrictions of language.

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/semantic

​with Síofra Peeren

Síofra Peeren (she/her)

Síofra is a trauma survivor and researcher. Her work focuses on amplifying the voices of survivors to transform health and social care; a mission that is shaped by both her lived experience. She has expertise in trauma-informed approaches and gender-based violence, and in using trauma-informed, creative and novel methods to engage with expertise held by survivors. She is also passionate about embedding trauma-informed principles in the evidence that shapes practice and policy decisions and thus founded the Kindness in Research Conference - a conference about trauma-informed research.

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Festival

The Traumascapes Arts Festival 2025 explores survivorhood through exhibition, film screenings, dance performances, talks, and workshops – all from the perspective of artists and researchers with lived experience of trauma.

See full programme here: https://traumascapes.org/arts-festival

About us

Traumascapes is a survivor-led organisation dedicated to changing the ecosystem of trauma and creating new horizons for survivors through art and science. Our work is bold, disruptive, and caring. It serves trauma survivors (individuals and groups who have been impacted by traumatic experiences such as, but not limited to, violence or abuse), persons and communities who support survivors, & professionals, organisations, and institutions who work on trauma and/or with survivors.

Accessibility

The venue is fully wheelchair accessible with step-free access throughout. An exhibition information pack is available with visual and conceptual descriptions of each artwork. A large-print pack is also available. All films screened as part of the festival include closed captions. Peer support workers and a quiet space with noise cancelling headphones and fidget toys are available on site (see the 'Caring for yourself and others' section below).

If you have any other access needs, please contact Julian and we will do our best to accommodate: julian@traumascapes.org.

Caring for yourself and your community

What to expect

The Traumascapes Arts Festival explores what it means to survive trauma, both individually and collectively. It includes the torment, the joy, and the messiness in between - all from the perspective of artists and researchers with lived experience of trauma. There are mentions/themes of colonialism, systemic violence, childhood and adulthood abuse (sexual, physical, emotional) and neglect, but there are no direct visual depictions of violence or abuse.​

Self and mutual care

It is important to hold space to explore trauma in order to raise awareness and to come together as a community to challenge the status quo and support collective healing. To create change, we must confront the reality of trauma - and this reality is a painful one.

But, as we do so, we must also counteract the normalisation of violence by fostering safety and protecting our wellbeing. As you explore the festival, we invite you to look after yourself and one another. Choose whether and when to engage, how much, and with whom. Step out when you need to and take care of yourself however feels right. Check-in with your peers too.

Support

• Peer support workers will be on site throughout the festival and you can chat to them any time. You can recognise them from their frog badges.

• A quiet space is located on the far end of the venue, on the right, where you can stay as long as you like, whenever you like.

• You can find noise-cancelling headphones, fidget toys, and art materials in the quiet space, which you can use at any time.

• Creative meditation and embodiment workshops are scheduled as part of the festival.

• An audio guide with grounding invitations is available for anyone to use as a way to explore the exhibition accompanied by some gentle grounding practices.

• For additional sources of support, please click here.

We may not be able to avoid all hurt and harm, but we can nurture safety and negotiate trauma with openness, mutual care, empathy, and grace. Thank you for being part of this.