Episode 4: Holding Space for Recovery: Sarah Bellisario on Symbolic Objects, Ritual-Making and The Humanist Deck
In this episode of the Therapeutic Landscapes podcast, Rebecca speaks with artist and researcher Sarah Bellisario, whose work explores the healing potential of symbolic objects, ritual-making, and creative engagement.
Sarah will be joining us at Therapeutic Landscapes II: Ritual, Folklore and Wellbeing as part of the Magical Material Practice panel, where she’ll be speaking on Holding Space for Recovery: Creative Engagement with Symbolic Artefacts and Ritual Making. She will also be running a workshop using The Humanist Deck, a magical, spiritual, and therapeutic art resource developed from her fine art doctorate.
In the conversation, Sarah shares how the deck grew out of her own creative healing practice, her research into ritual and magical objects, and her desire to make something tangible and useful from years of study. What began as a body of artwork and research has become a 78-card deck used for reflection, conversation, art-making, emotional recovery, and connection to self.
The episode also explores Sarah’s Goddess Project, a series of contemporary goddess sculptures created in response to human experiences such as anxiety, scars, strange comforts, and children failed by the systems meant to protect them. In one exhibition, visitors were invited to leave offerings and wishes for the goddesses, creating a moving public ritual of need, hope, grief, longing, and shared humanity.
At the heart of Sarah’s work is a question that runs beautifully through this year’s Therapeutic Landscapes theme: what do we continue to receive from symbolic, ritual, magical, and creative practices when healing is in mind?
This is a conversation about art as research, objects as containers of meaning, ritual as a holding space, and the human need to connect with something that feels meaningful, personal, and alive.
Sarah Bellisario will be speaking and running a workshop on Saturday 13th June at Therapeutic Landscapes II: Ritual, Folklore and Wellbeing.