Art Conversations Workshops:

Conversations with Clay

starting March 2024

Would you like to explore an artistic way to express emotions? Have you ever felt tense or overwhelmed, and would like to try a tool to release those and other emotions without having to articulate and understand them?

Conversations with Clay is a workshop in which you can let go, express yourself, and create a sculpture in a relaxed atmosphere. You will exercise storytelling through modeling, letting your intuition guide your hands. Without judgement or pressure. Conversations with Clay is a meditative, positive time of creation in which we invite your mind to “take a break”, and your body to play, release, and create.

While the aim of Conversations with Clay is to release and relax through the act of modeling, at the end of this workshop you will have a small sculpture, or group of small sculptures.

Duration: 3 hours
Group: up to 4 participants
Location: Altstetten, Zurich
Languages: English, Spanish, and/or German
Cost: CHF 160.-
All materials are included, plus coffee/tea & snacks

Why this workshop?

Art is my passion and my profession. Art has also been, and continues to be, my “savior”. It is my go-to tool in the moments I feel stressed, afraid, or disoriented. Liberating the head and bringing the action to the hands helps me to relax the inner tension. It also allows me to express things, to visualize what is inside. It helps the subconscious to become visible and brings clarity to chaos. In those moments I don’t search for any particular result, even though I can later recognize their artistic value.

This process has helped me so much, as well as many others I had the privilege to work with. Therefore I wish to share it with you and other persons through this workshop.

I’ve had the opportunity to bring this intuitive process of creating to students, as well as to a wider audience in museums and art spaces. As tutor, I have led workshops in several European institutions like F+F and ZHdK in Zurich, TU Delft and Fontys Academy of the Arts in The Netherlands, and Istituto Europeo di Design and Universidad Europea in Madrid. I have also realized series of performative works in which I invited the public to share their stories and express them through drawing or through modeling, like in the participatory “What is Our Dream?” (Helmhaus, 2020-2021), “Scenes for Satisfaction” (Art Festival Winterthur, 2021), and “White and Black, Things and Rituals” (Shedhalle, 2021, supported by Stadt Zürich Kultur).