Those who are left behind: the legacy of land and migration trauma

PURPOSE OF THE WORKSHOP:

The dominant narrative, or ‘single story’ of an historical event imposes silence around massive numbers of unseen and unacknowledged dead, along with a denial of the existence of some. And within that grieving can be impossible. Dismembering occurs within each stage of a colonial or migration story. The befores and afters of ‘invasion’, ‘colonisation’, and ‘migration’ hold the loss of what once was and now can never be, the loss of relationships with the land, the land that holds the dead and the ancestors. With every trauma point a before/after fracture point emerges that has the potential to become an entanglement for present and future generations if untended. Each one of us will be standing in different before/after points. This will continue until the silences are (gently) broken through acts of creating a place for grief, which opens a space for those who have been silenced to speak words or tell stories that have been previously unspoken.

STRUCTURE OF THE WORKSHOP:

Presentation with slides to discuss the dominant themes followed by dyads to explore a before/after point within their field of influence, then q&a.