Bridging Clinical Art Therapy and Social Justice-Oriented Art-Based CommunitiesArt Therapy as a Healing and Emancipatory Space for Persons with Intellectual Disabilities

This research project aims to broaden understanding of social justice by situating it within relational and embodied practice, rather than treating it solely as an abstract principle. It shows how art-based communities within art therapy praxis can serve as healing and emancipatory spaces that bridge clinical and community contexts for individuals with intellectual disabilities.
It demonstrates how these practices foster relational forms of social justice that go beyond formal rights and procedural inclusion, revealing how recognition, meaning, and radical belonging are co-created through art-based, embodied, community-based encounters. Attuned to rights-based aspirations, relational ethics, and critical reflections on normativity that intersect in practice, art therapy can support processes of healing, social repair, and emancipation, cultivating community spaces and relationships where these processes can emerge, take root and flourish.