Ruth Mateus-Berr

Resilience through Creative Empathy. Arts & Non-Violent Communication.

Ruth Mateus-Berr – University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria

Abstract:

This article presents a method for dealing with conflicts in art and design in everyday school life. The method of non-violent communication according to Marshall Rosenberg is used and processed non-verbally in the form of a comic. By remembering a small conflict, processing it using the methods of Marshall Rosenberg and designing this conflict in the form of a comic, children and young people can learn how to help themselves to resolve conflicts. The artistic design allows for embodiment, internalization and consolidation of the methodological steps. A case study is presented and analysed below. The method is intended to support young people in applying art as a way to overcome conflicts. Students (n = 19, 12w, 7m) received a brief introduction to non-violent communication, developed by conflict mediator Marshall Rosenberg. The four steps include: observing and describing a situation, becoming aware of and expressing one’s own feelings, identifying the need behind the feeling and formulating a request. For this purpose, they were also given a copied sheet of paper with different need cards and designed a comic about conflict. This article deals with the students’ conflict issues and their form of conflict resolution scenarios, as well as examples of failure based on the comics they have drawn. Through the drawing, the four steps are embodied and internalized again, because a lot of practice is needed to apply the method. In this way, it is possible to provide children and young people with opportunities to find solutions to conflict-ridden everyday situations using the medium of art and the methods of non-violent communication. Accordingly, art not only has an aesthetic, creative function, but in this case also a salutogenic one. The project allows young people to learn and apply methods of conflict resolution by working through a small conflict, and to give them the skills to help themselves through artistic expression.