Catalyst's Forum for Creative Flourishing

The Forum for Creative Flourishing is a series of workshops and exhibitions designed to let participants experientially explore the psychological underpinnings of the creative process. Through hands-on practices with engaging experts participants will have the opportunity to learn more about themselves and build a deeper relationship with their own creative process.

This year’s theme is Creative Restoration and Rejuvenation — what fuels us, sustains us and brings our artistic energy back to life. Together we'll explore what kind of creative habits and practices can help to "fill up our cup", restore our energy, and give us the fuel we need to creatively flourish.

Attendees gain access to workshops and events led by practising artists and psychologists. Each workshop requires its own ticket, allowing you to choose the sessions that best support your creative journey. Through hands-on sessions, you’ll explore the psychological roots of creativity, reflect on your own process and discover new tools for growth.

Open to all, the forum is also a great opportunity to learn more about our courses in Applied Creative Psychology, as part of Catalyst's .

Please view the full agenda on this page for details about each workshop. When you click the tickets button, you’ll be able to select the workshops you’d like to attend.

Info: In this workshop we'll explore explore how staying connected to one's bodily sensations helps creative restoration. By reconnecting with their physical selves, participants will learn tools to release tension, restore vitality, and reignite creative flow. Using mindfulness and centering exercises, and body awareness practices I will draw on well-established embodiment techniques I have practiced within my certification as an embodiment coach. Exercises will foster self-acceptance/love and grace to start the creative process from a gentle, accepting and nourished place. Participants are invited to do a range of exploratory individual and partner exercises, move throughout the room, and share through open dialogue.

Info: The concept of "Somatic Fictions" explores the body’s capacity to create and to recover by introducing body-based tools that engage the nervous system alongside the “felt sense”. It addresses the body as a generative site in order to shift from fixity into flow, from overwhelm into possibility, choice and even play. I will introduce practices that bridge neuro-scientific research—drawing especially from Polyvagal theory—and embodied creative practices. The focus is on practices for restoring regulation of the autonomic nervous system, thus offering tools for strengthening resilience and tapping into non-verbal, sensory-based, action-oriented modes.

Info: Together we'll explore the theme of Reconnecting to Our Joy and Ease through a highly interactive and experiential workshop designed specifically for young artists. The focus will be on rediscovering that inner sense of freedom, curiosity, and playfulness that is often buried under performance pressure, fear of judgment, and the expectations of the art world.
This topic supports the year’s theme by giving students tools to reclaim their authentic creative voice and to approach their artistic practice with more ease, curiosity, and self-trust. By remembering the childlike state of openness, participants can renew their relationship with art — not as a burden or performance, but as an act of joyful exploration.

Info: In this workshop participants will explore the underlying psychology of rest with special attention towards how rest interacts with the creative process. Going beyond rest as merely a lifehack or productivity booster, we'll consider rest as a fundamental aspect of the creative process. Together we'll touch on the Psychology of getting into states of flow and then investigate the ways in which rest directly contributes to every precondition necessary for getting "into the zone" and becoming deeply engaged with your creative work.

Info: Success does not necessarily have to be associated with high energy consumption. In most cases, efficiency is a playful ease that arises from interest, curiosity, and passion. This ease is often lost in the course of life. In this workshop, we will search for the causes and discover our joy of playing and ease through musical expression and movement.
In a following afternoon session we will perform a musical/ movement based improvisation, exploring circumstance over performance.

Info: 'Writing as Restorative Practice' is a workshop designed to help participants develop a daily writing practice that is restorative to them, emotionally and creatively. This workshop will include various brief writing activities and reflections on how the participants found them, what ideas or feelings came up, what they noticed about themselves or their writing, etc. These activities will serve as as entry points for participants to continue their restorative writing practice on their own. Each activity is intended to help participants see the value of writing as a means to work through tensions or stresses in their lives.

Info: Inspiration Information: an interactive/reflective workshop that helps artists reframe media intake — how the forms of media we expose ourselves to reshape our attention, nervous systems, and creative voices — so consumption can become nourishment rather than drain. Real-time engagement and individual + group reflections on the mental/emotional affect of "Feeds", Timelines, Poems, Headlines, Books, Songs, Film Scenes, etc; Intention setting around scrolling hygiene; a weekly plan for recalibrating media inputs with creative outputs. Brief lecture sections followed by open discussions -- these are things we are all dealing with privately and it can be really heavy, so the idea is to keep it fun, honest and a source of inspiration in itself.

Info: This workshop focuses on how music and sound can be used as tools for emotional rebalancing, energy renewal, and strengthening one's inner (and social) connections. Participants will explore Active and Embodied Listening- Exploring how different sounds, frequencies and tones affect energy and emotion. Expressive Sound Making- Improvisational group exercise using voice, percussion, or found sound. Exploring rhythm, tempo, and entrainment as emotional mirrors. Creative Integration- Individual art or journaling process of reflection on participants creative blockages- with group sharing.

Info: How can we make use of our dreams within our creative process? In this workshop we'll examine the relationship sleep and dreams have to making exciting and authentic creative work. Sleep allows us to find inspiration, try on new perspectives, and show up to our creative process as our best selves.

Info: In this workshop we'll explore the psychology creative burnout. How to recognize it, how to deal with it when it's happened, and how to avoid it in the first place. We'll also explore the concept of Vital Engagement, what could be considered the opposite of burnout, in which we feel absorbed in creative work that is meaningful and restorative.

Info: Many creatives aspire to have enough rest, but still end up having a super busy schedule. This workshop would help people create a more sustainable work schedule to keep them happier and more productive, working with their bodies instead of against them.

Info: This workshop explores flow states, moments of deep creative absorption, through psychological and embodied approaches that center rest and renewal as pathways to creative flourishing. Drawing from Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow Theory on The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening practice, and Isaac Burt’s perspectives on how flow can be a tool for resilience and creativity, participants will learn how restorative practices can help them access and sustain flow - the state of being fully immersed in an activity and aligned with the moment. Participants will move through gentle restorative activities such as deep listening, body scans, breath-work, and other guided relaxation or grounding exercises. These somatic practices will be followed by creative impulses like visualization, writing, and reflective journaling, allowing participants to directly experience and identify conditions that foster flow.

Info: An honest and participatory discussion about the relationship between Percussion & Emotional Catharsis followed by a live performance of experimental bass music and electronic percussion.

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Host or Publisher Catalyst - Institute of Creative Arts & Technology