Art therapy and social activism in community-based projects

This article describes the current interventions and experiences of grassroots members of community-based organisations across South Africa that were presented during the Training Art Therapists for Social Justice conference. The theme of the panel was art therapy and social action in community-based projects. The panel was positioned as a conversation contextualised by the moderator within the South African landscape. After the introductions to the work of Butterfly Art Project, Lefika La Phodiso, Intlantsi Creative Development Project, Creative Mentorship Hub, and Angela Rackstraw, three main questions were discussed by the panellists: How can therapeutic art training programmes incorporate social justice principles to better prepare community workers such as community art counsellors and community art facilitators to address systemic inequalities and remind inclusivity in their practice; What is the role of supervision and mentoring in your specific organisation and how it helped you to sustain the work between the advocacy, the mental health and facilitation; and What examples do we have of community programmes that effectively address any social action or social justice issues and would you measure success in advocating for or achieving a social justice aim?