Friday, November 7
Yes, ARTs can!
We open the conference with an invitation to arrive—not just physically, but as a whole person. In this grounding session, we’ll connect as a global community of practitioners, educators, and creators. Through simple expressive arts-based prompts, we’ll check in with ourselves and one another, set shared intentions, and step into a space of co-creation.
Guided by the conference slogan Yes, ARTs Can! Create change and build professions, we’ll reflect on how our personal and professional journeys brought us here—and how, together, we can build momentum for change. This session sets the tone for connection, curiosity, and courageous presence.
CEAT ACADEMY: Andreja Anžur Černič, Mojca Leben and Tea Tomažič
Unlocking the Power of Symbols
This engaging workshop explores the symbolic dimension of expressive arts and how it can support both individual and corporate clients. We’ll reflect on the question: “Who am I as a professional?” and use this inquiry as a gateway to deeper understanding through art.
Nuria will share techniques and insights from her practice, introducing the Symbolic Quiz and offering practical ways to work with metaphors and images in a professional context. You’ll leave with tools to use in your own work—and new perspectives on the language of symbols. A blend of theory and hands-on experience awaits!
Nuria Mendoza
The Healing Power of the Arts: Trusting the Process, Trusting Life
In his keynote workshop, internationally acclaimed psychologist and expressive arts therapist Dr. Avi Goren-Bar will explore the profound healing potential of the arts and the universal language of creative expression. Drawing on decades of experience, he will illuminate how music, movement, imagery, poetry, and storytelling can open safe spaces for connection, transformation, and trust—between therapist and client, within communities, and within ourselves.
At the heart of his message lies trust: trust in the arts, in the therapeutic process, in the client’s capacity to find their own answers, and in ourselves as therapists and coaches. Dr. Goren-Bar reminds us that the work we do in the therapy room only becomes truly potent when it resonates beyond it—when it transforms life itself.
This workshop offers not only insight but experience. It invites participants to engage creatively and reflect on how what is lived, created, and shared at the conference can echo in their daily lives and professional practice. In doing so, we begin to heal not only individuals—but the wounded world we live in. Trusting the process, we strengthen our trust in life itself.
dr. Avi Goren-Bar
enjoy your meal!
Art at Work: Transformative Power of Creative Approaches in Business and Leadership
This interactive 75-minute session explores how artistic methods can drive meaningful transformation in business, leadership, and coaching. Often perceived as tools for children or therapeutic contexts, art-based approaches offer surprising power in professional development and organizational change. Through experiential methods like the Iceberg Model, Leadership Archetypes, Hero’s Quest, and collage-making, participants will gain insight into how creativity fosters deeper self-awareness, connection, and innovation.
We will kick off with a dynamic introduction inspired by the conference theme “JUMP,” prompting reflection on personal and professional transitions: Where are you now? What’s holding you back? How do you relate to stillness? The workshop integrates a real-life coaching case demonstrating the before-after effect of using arts to shift perspectives and catalyse action.
Participants will engage in role-play and breakout discussions to experience first-hand how art uncovers hidden narratives, supports change, and builds emotional intelligence in individuals and teams. The session aims to inspire managers, coaches, and trainers to embrace art not only as a developmental tool but as a viable, effective element of business strategy—with measurable outcomes.
Join us to reimagine leadership and unlock the potential of creative practice in your work.
Andreja Anžur Černič and Sanja Zdunić
Art of finding your way
This online workshop invites you to pause and tune into your inner compass. Where are you now? What do you long for? Using creative tools and embodied reflection, you’ll gently map your current position and open a space for what wants to emerge next.
Change begins by noticing where we stand and clarifying where we want to be. Taking time for this kind of self-inquiry is not only nourishing for our own path; it also deepens the clarity and presence we bring into our work with others. Especially when we support clients through change, knowing what grounds and guides us becomes essential.
Sandra Raković
Expression in times of oppression
A collective need for liberation often finds expression through art—an act that challenges rigid systems and gives voice to what cannot be silenced. In this session, we’ll explore the transformative power of creative expression in times of social tension and political resistance.
Using recent events in Serbia as a point of departure, we’ll examine how the arts can embody protest, truth, and resilience. Through reflection and artistic engagement, participants are invited to witness how creativity disrupts the unspoken and opens space for collective healing.
Ivana Martinović
The Taste of Creativity: From Still Life to Chocolate Bliss
This hands-on workshop weaves together the worlds of art, cooking, and expressive arts therapy. We’ll begin with a brief reflection on the presence of food in art history – from rich still lifes to Arcimboldo’s imaginative portraits – and continue with an introduction to the creative process and Avi Goren-Bar’s Creation Axis – a profound tool which offers valuable insight into the clients inner dynamics, state of being and his/hers creative flow.
In this “learning by doing” process, through preparing a simple evening snack, we will experience the six stages of creation axis also integrating movement, sensory awarness and playfull exploration.
What if the act of making something small and sweet could open a window into the heart of the creative process? What if it ilustrates how we (and our clients) function in Life in general?
Preparing the chocolate snacks will be a great introduction into the following movie night and the chocolate energy balls a great companion for the suggested movie themes.
Mojca Leben
Closing Day 1: Movement & Directions for movie night
Saturday, November 8
Morning scribble caffee
Ease into the conference day with your favorite morning drink and a pen in hand. This gentle, informal gathering invites participants to connect through spontaneous scribbling – no drawing skills needed, just presence and curiosity. While we sip, we’ll let our pens wander across the page, following our mood, the rhythm of the moment, or maybe the echo of last night’s films. Scribbling becomes a shared language beyond words – a way to tune in to ourselves and to one another across screens. You’re welcome to share your page or just enjoy the quiet creativity. A relaxed space for waking up together, one line at a time.
Mojca Leben and Tea Tomažič
Tea Imaginary – A Sensory Journey Through Tea, Movement, Breath & Imagination
Start your day with a ritual that blends tea, movement, and imagination. Through a short tea meditation and fluid expressive exercises, we’ll awaken the body and ease into the morning with breath, creativity, and presence.
We’ll explore how a warm cup of herbal tea can ground, inspire—and even invite us to create. Mihaela will also share her Tea Imaginary kits, born at the intersection of art, self-care, and sensory play. Please bring a cup of tea to this session. It might have a dream to share.
Mihaela Sirotnjak Železnik
Intuitive Landscape
This gentle workshop invites you to relax, breathe, and follow your inner imagery into a painted landscape. After a short visualization and meditative music, we will paint spontaneously—without judgment or plan—simply letting colors and shapes emerge.
We’ll then turn to our paintings with curiosity: What emotions are present? What symbols appear? What does this inner terrain reveal about our state of being? Through journaling, sharing, and reflection, we open space for emotional expression, mindfulness, and connection. A journey into creativity as presence—and presence as healing.
Lydia Patafta, mag.art
Fear of the dark: Ode to Cerberus
Oftentimes in psychotherapeutic spaces we encounter the fear of the dark, the resistance towards the unknown. This fear is felt by clients and practitioners alike, and it is characterised by the unwillingness to sniff the other side of the Known.
In expressive arts therapy this fear is represented by the reluctance to come into proximity with the artwork, to become intimate with it, to allow it to speak and reveal its gifts… And it is precisely in expressive arts therapy that those gifts are very scarily visible, calling both the client and the practitioner into the wonderful fruitful darkness.
During the duration of this workshop, we shall investigate our own fear of entering the Unconscious realms, by meeting the gatekeeper Cerberus. Which mechanisms of defense do we use to guard our Consciousness? Are we willing to see beyond them and find out which sacrifice is required by our barking three-headed dog in order to move into the Unknown? And can we decipher when it is time to move into the Unknown, and when it is better to humbly bow to Cerberus and return to the Known?
Maša Žarnić
Meeting the shadow: an expressive arts encounter
In this workshop, we journey into Jung’s concept of the shadow—those unseen or repressed aspects of self that hold both our fears and our potential. Through expressive arts, we invite the shadow into view.
Participants will reflect, draw, write, and move: “If your shadow had a shape, what would it be?” “What would it say to you?” “How would it move if it took over your body?” Through gentle inquiry and creativity, we meet what is hidden—not to fix it, but to understand its role in our wholeness. The session closes with space for integration and shared reflection.
Mehmet Edin
enjoy your meal!
Jung, Symbols, and the Archetypal Power of Film
In this inspiring afternoon talk, Dr. Avi Goren-Bar takes us into the symbolic world of Carl Jung and the rich terrain of archetypes as they appear in the art of cinema. Through selected film scenes and stories, he will explore how symbolic language and archetypal images evoke deep emotional truths, reveal unconscious patterns, and open paths for personal and collective transformation. Participants will be invited to reflect on their own symbolic experiences and the therapeutic potential of engaging with art that speaks directly to the soul.
Also, this talk connects the transformative power of archetypes with our own professional identities—reminding us that Yes, Arts can not only create change, but also shape us as therapists and coaches who carry that change into the world.
dr. Avi Goren-Bar
The body remembers the good too
In therapeutic spaces, we are often drawn to what is difficult and painful, while positive experiences – moments of ease, clarity, connection or groundedness – tend to go unnoticed or underexplored. Yet these very experiences form the basis of our inner resources, supporting self-regulation, resilience, and healing.
This online Expressive Arts Therapy workshop offers a place to turn toward the supportive qualities within us and give them form through creative expression. Together, we will take time to honor the positive experiences that live in our bodies – so they are not overlooked, but remembered, felt, and given the space they deserve.
Gordana Knezić
Coaching in the Gallery: Let the Painting Do the Talking
What happens when a gallery/museum becomes a coaching room?
A work of art—perhaps created decades or even centuries ago—takes the lead in a conversation that begins in silence. Speaking directly to the client’s unconscious, the artwork offers metaphors, emotions, and questions that words alone cannot reach. In this space, the client is invited to project, reflect, and unlock what has long been waiting to be seen.
In this interactive session, we’ll explore how the gallery—rich in symbolism, atmosphere, and beauty—can serve as a powerful container for both life and business coaching. Through the method of slow watching, clients are gently guided to pause, observe, and connect deeply with selected artworks. These images often reflect their inner and professional world, sparking unexpected insights into leadership, relationships, direction, and change.
By slowing down and entering into quiet dialogue with art, clients gain access to new layers of awareness and meaning. The gallery becomes not only a sanctuary for reflection, but also a catalyst for transformation.
Mojca Leben