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Images of Belonging

Location: Indoors or Outdoors

Time: 60 minutes

Materials: A designated “stage” area observable by the audience

Optional: list of potential poses for the actors

Objectives

• To bring internally held images into the open.

• To represent a social constellation from the participants’ past, present, or future.

• To create a “snapshot” of a family or identity group using the media of “actors.”

• To better understand internally held images and work beyond them.

Directions

1. Have a cofacilitator monitor activity and provide grounding in case anyone begins to find the activity upsetting or is triggered by a past trauma.

2. Introduce the purpose of the activity.

3. Review the terms used in the activity.

• Stage: the end of the room visible to the audience

• Audience: all group members with the exception of the artist

• Artist: the individual in charge of creating the sculpture—a rotating role

• Actors: two to five audience members selected by the artist to pose in the sculpture

• Sculpture: the art generated by the artist as he or she poses the various actors

4. As a demonstration, compose your family of origin sculpture using participants as actors. For example, the actor representing father is posed as Statue of Liberty, and the actor representing mother is posed in adoration. Actors representing multiple siblings are posed in closeness to mother. The artist is represented by actor holding on to father’s shirttails.

5. Describes the actors and what they represent.

6. Select a volunteer artist to demonstrate his or her sculpture.

• Artist chooses first actor and positions, beginning the sculpture.

• Artist selects second actor and positions.

• Artist chooses third actor and positions.

• Artist continues positioning actors until the sculpture is complete. Do not use more than half the number of people in the room. Most sculptures involve no more than three to four actors. One actor, for example, may represent a group or class of people, parents, or siblings.

• Once the sculpture is complete, artist turns to the audience and describes the work.

• On completion, the actors return to their seats ready for the next artist demonstration.

7. Have all group participants take a turn being the artist, demonstrating their sculpture.

8. A second round of demonstrations may be desired in which an identity group is used instead of the family origin, such as a workplace, a group of friends, or a support group. The artist repeats steps as demonstrated previously, using group members to construct the new sculpture.

9. Once each participant has demonstrated their sculpture, initiate a discussion about any of the works presented.

10. Conclude with a debriefing process to put matters into current perspective.

Observations

This activity was performed twice with groups of eight and ten. In each group, a member was present who had been raised in foster homes, but each adapted quickly to the suggestion of choosing one family to represent. The facilitator’s demonstration of her own family image proved to be a powerful stimulus to engagement, and all group members participated enthusiastically. The discussion that followed each of the demonstrations revealed a good deal of feelings held within and opened channels for working through unacknowledged emotions. During the discussion phase, it was necessary to emphasize identifying actors by their actual names: “She’s not really your mother, she’s Judy.” The potential list of actor poses were developed after the first session to facilitate imagery and used by only a few of the participants. There was a tendency to use a tall, stately woman as the father image and a tiny young woman as the child in all the sculptures. This repeated choice of actors was acknowledged in the concluding discussion. In both sessions, the activity was universally well-received and described as powerful and helpful by the clients.

Potential actor poses suggested by group members:

Inspired by: The pioneering influence of psychodrama by Jacob Moreno has been a source of significance in this form of expression. It was, however, Virginia Satir’s work in family sculpting and teaching by counselor Lilian Borges, who integrates body sculpting in her therapeutic approaches that inspired development of this activity.

“The most valuable teaching comes from the members of the group, not the facilitator.”

KAY COLBERT