The Frenzied Dance of Art and Violence: Its Development, Challenges and Content with Dr Dave Gussak

After 8 long years, Dr. Dave Gussak's latest, and by his account, final book has been officially released by Oxford University Press, entitled "The Frenzied Dance of Art and Violence". As the book's inside flap summarizes (in part):  

"Some artists have an inclination towards violence, with art helping to mitigate or redirect their destructive energy. For others, their art helps them gain power over or make sense of violent environs. Finally, for some violent perpetrators, art simply mirrors and even perpetuates their psychopathic cycles. Through it all, The Frenzied Dance of Art and Violence explores - and seeks to understand - these interrelated paths of destruction and creation. To inform this dynamic, Dr. David E. Gussak relies on various psychological and sociological perspectives of violence and aggression…The book concludes with Gussak's reflections from his thirty years as an art therapist working with violent offenders on how art can be used as a therapeutic tool to assuage violence and aggression and promote peace in volatile situations. This book is a far-reaching and thought-provoking examination of the competing and complex impulses motivating artwork and those who make it."  
  
However, while this webinar will indeed provide a brief, yet copiously illustrated synopsis of this text, Dr Gussak intends for it to be more than a mere iteration of its contents. Revealing the book's genesis, development and emergence through its various dynamic processes and complex steps needed for its completion, he believes will lend itself to another dimension of understanding of its intricate and compelling content. In other words, examining the becoming of this work is necessary to understand what it became. Thus, this webinar will not only clarify this frenzied dance between art and violence it will also reveal the dance steps necessary to bring such a book into fruition.   
  
PRESENTER:  
Dave Gussak, PhD, ATR-BC is Professor for the Florida State University's Art Therapy Program and Project Coordinator for the FSU/FDC Art Therapy in Prisons program. He has presented and published extensively on forensic art therapy and art therapy in forensic settings, including Art on Trial: Art Therapy for Capital Murder Cases (2013), Art and Art Therapy with the Imprisoned: Re-Creating Identity (2019) and most recently, The Frenzied Dance of Art and Violence (2022). He is also the co-editor [with Dr. Marcia Rosal] of The Wiley Handbook of Art Therapy (2016). He remains active in the American Art Therapy Association, and currently serves on the editorial board for Art Therapy: The Journal of the American Art Therapy Association and Arts In Psychotherapy along with other professional journals.  

Start date: Friday 10 June 2022
Time: 11am - 12.30pm AEST (9 am HKT, 1pm NZT)
Thursday 9 June at 9pm EDT  (Dr Gussak's time zone) 
Duration: 1 and ½ hours (includes Q&A)
Location: Zoom (link provided in the registration confirmation email)
Cost: $40 (+GST for Australian members)
Open to: All members (Unlimited number of participants)

The session will be recorded and shared with all registrants.

This webinar is open to public, so participants who are not ANZACATA members can register for this event.