THE WORKSHOP - ICEBREAKERS

A few weeks before flying out, the workshops were finalized. I was to lead a workshop for a self-help group consisting of adults battling addiction, post-incarceration, grief and disability. I was both eager and nervous for the workshop. I knew it had enormous potential to influence my current social practice, but all the new variables also heightened my anxiety.

My current work is rooted in social practice; I have created several experimental situations requiring participation in a group or communal activity.  These situations or experiences force participants to make decisions in regards to communication and interaction. These projects investigate the verbal and non-verbal ways of communication in new and unfamiliar situations in an effort to deconstruct and understand how we connect and relate to one another.

For my workshop, I created an experience based around the idea of an icebreaker. An icebreaker is defined as “a thing that serves to relieve inhibitions or tension between people, or start a conversation.”  The workshop involved roughly thirty participants and lasted approximately four hours. For the first half of the workshop, I talked individually with people about communication and the comforts and struggles that go along with opening up to others.  In the second half of the workshop, I invited individuals to participate in a Question and Answer experience.

We proceeded to sit in a circle, and read aloud, one at a time, questions from the book “4,000 Questions For Getting To Know Anyone and Everyone” by Barbara Ann Kipfer. The questions were silly and lighthearted, in hopes of easing tensions and providing a comfortable and relaxed atmosphere.  After a question was read, the participants would answer the question out loud, in unison. 

At the conclusion of the workshop, the responses were enthusiastic and positive. Many participants opened up and shared- thanks in part to a book of unassuming, goofy questions. The workshop disengaged anxieties about communicating with others because it provided the opportunity for power and control - through the act of holding the book, choosing a question, and reading the question aloud.  Answering the questions simultaneously took the pressure off of the individual and placed them in the experience as parts to a whole.

The workshop in England was the first participatory experience I had done outside of an American university setting. The demographic was broad and varied, and this was the first time I was the outsider – the other.  I was also unsure of the sensitivity and willingness of the group, especially since I had previously worked with only students and artists. As the facilitator in this experimental situation, I chose an icebreaker activity to ease the tensions and predispositions I was feeling about leading a workshop overseas to a group of strangers.  Working in England, I did not have to overcome a language barrier, and an activity involving verbal communication and sharing was a suitable choice. Like my past projects, this workshop involved individual participation in a group activity, while adhering to a simple set of parameters. The individuals in the experience had to choose whether to just observe or to open themselves up and share.