Description
Creative Approaches to Conflict
Monday September 8th 2pm – Wednesday September 10th 2pm, 2025
Holland House retreat centre, Main St, Cropthorne, Pershore WR10 3NB, UK
A creative residential programme drawing on metaphor and imagination to explore conflict and community peacebuilding. Organised by Quakers but open to all.
The world’s conflicts and society’s polarisation might feel overwhelming, but we can push back with love and creativity, starting with ourselves and with our communities. The greater the challenge, the louder the call to respond imaginatively. How do we understand conflict? And how do we prepare our communities for peace?
We will be offering a participatory programme using traditional storytelling, visual art and experiential arts. We will be touching on the thinking of John Paul Lederach amongst others. No specialist skills or knowledge are needed to participate.
Who is it for?
Adults 18+ interested in deepening their understanding of conflict and capacity for community peacebuilding. It may also be of value to those with experience who wish to reflect on their approaches in new ways.
Cost
£195 including 2 nights and meals
Reduced to £130 for participants up to age 34 (if you are under 34 and are therefore eligible for the reduced price then please email reservations@hollandhouse.org for a separate link to book.)
Facilitators
Marian Liebmann has worked in art therapy with offenders, women’s groups, and for 19 years in a community mental health team. She runs art therapy workshops on themes of anger and conflict at centres and universities in the UK, Europe and Africa. She also volunteers as a mediator in her local community and runs dialogue groups.
Marian has written/edited twelve books on these topics, including ‘Arts Approaches to Conflict’, ‘Restorative Justice: How it works’ and ‘Mediation in Context’.
Marian Liebmann | Jessica Kingsley Publishers – UK
Hannah Moore is a storyteller, facilitator and arts practitioner with a background in working with the arts for wellbeing and community building. She trained with and now teaches for the School of Storytelling, who have a particular emphasis on how traditional storytelling can be applied in the world today. Hannah’s work focuses on using the wisdom of myth and folktales for personal and professional development, with a particular emphasis on storytelling as a tool for peace and reconciliation.
Hannah trained in restorative justice with Resolve West (UK) and has volunteered as an RJ facilitator and community mediator for Restorative Gloucestershire in the UK. She also trained in Working With Stories Of Lived Experience with The Forgiveness Project and in Peace and Reconciliation Leadership with Reconcilers Together, including work as an associate facilitator for St Ethelburga’s Centre for Peace and Reconciliation and Rose Castle Foundation.
Hannah works frequently with Restorative Justice facilitators and community mediators in the UK, delivering story-based development workshops that explore the themes and experiences which restorative practitioners encounter in their work through the lens of ancient story-wisdom.
As well as being a traditional storyteller, Hannah is a community dance artist, workshop leader and event manager. Drawing on a depth of experience in using creativity in group processes, Hannah is especially interested in how exploring the imaginative realm together can benefit our wellbeing and enable experiential learning.
Rebecca Bellamy works as Peacebuilding Coordinator for Quakers in Britain, where she seeks to develop and strengthen responsive, creative, and transformative approaches to peace and conflict in communities within Britain. This includes exploring what role Quakers and others can play in attending to deep divisions and conflict in society,
Rebecca has over 17 years experience in socially engaged arts, specialising in directing and curating events and festivals where she’s worked with a range of creative practitioners and art forms, often working with different faiths. https://www.rebeccabellamy.co.uk/ She’s in the process of launching a new participatory arts project ‘Letters from Tomorrow’ which aims to help build stronger connections and aid communities in imagining and hope-building.
Rebecca has been coordinating and supporting peacebuilding projects since 2011, specialising in interreligious relations and dialogue work in Europe and Britain since 2011.
Arrivals from 2pm on Monday until 2pm on Wednesday. Includes all meals, refreshments and accommodation
Please note that Holland House does not provide a choice menu at meal times and it is therefore very important that you note any food types that you are unable to eat due to an allergy or you can advise of a dietary preference of vegetarian, pescatarian, dairy free, gluten free or vegan.