Foreign Exchanges: Engaging with Conflict
a mediation workshop for artists and others

THIS WORKSHOP HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO AN UNEXPECTED BEREFT SITUATION. WE APOLOGIZE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE.

Saturday, April 22 , 2006. 1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Inherent in the complexity of conflict communication is how individuals and groups in conflict are inclined to consciously and unconsciously mix their “words” with subtle emotional meanings, subliminal messages, and culturally coded gestures. The operative principle in decoding conflict communication is not logic, but aesthetics, not science, but art. [ click here continue reading Workshop Description]

Workshop Logistics

$10 with paid RSVP/$15 at the door (RSVPs are not accepted day of workshop)
Space is limited, please RSVP at (661)253-7875
 
California Institute of the Arts - Faculty Center
24700 McBean Parkway
Santa Clarita, CA 91355

GET A MAP HERE
Parking can be easily found within the CalArts Campus. Follow the signs to the Faculty Center from the front entrance.

Workshop Description

Inherent in the complexity of conflict communication is how individuals and groups in conflict are inclined to consciously and unconsciously mix their “words” with subtle emotional meanings, subliminal messages, and culturally coded gestures. The operative principle in decoding conflict communication is not logic, but aesthetics, not science, but art.

 Our identities are suffused with personal and cultural histories communicated indirectly to each other through many layers of meaning: language, facial expressions, tone of voice, body gestures, movement, clothing, gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexual persuasion and back-dropped by the visual and physical variables of the environment where the conflict occurs. Our ability to recognize each other depends on our consciousness of ourselves as receivers and transmitters of information. Who are we as listeners and how do we listen? How do we engage with the other?

Artists, creators of subtle expression often engaging ambiguity, are often personally identified with their expressions. As such, artists are vulnerable to misunderstanding and misrepresentation. Resulting disputes and non-resolvable conflicts may destroy relationships, collaborations, business dealings and creative visioning.

This workshop will assist you in learning a set of aesthetic lessons, perceptual skills, and intervention techniques expanding your ability to recognize the subtle details of interpersonal conflict communication.

• recognize and assess conflict
• listen intentionally
• reframe
• restate
• separate the problem from the person
• empathize
• develop and negotiate options
• exchange an agreement

Developing skills to recognize, interpret and make use of the nuances of communication, be they physical, cultural, emotional, or philosophical, will make you a more effective and empathic artist, communicator and sensor of life.

Workshop Leader Biography

Dorit Cypis is no stranger to art, artists and conflict. She has spent thirty years as
a professional artist exhibiting nationally and internationally, a professor of art, a creator of public programs, and a professional mediator transforming conflict. Her work, exploring the social, physical and psychological aspects of who we are, how we represent ourselves and how we relate to others, brings a breadth of knowledge, experience and subtle tools of perception to her conflict resolution practice.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This Business of Art Workshops are sponsored by the City of Santa Clarita Arts & Events Office and the CalArts Alumni Association in collaboration with Side Street Projects.