Have you ever wanted to include sound or song in your work, but just haven’t quite felt confident enough? In this experiential workshop, we’ll explore what helps people to feel safe to make sound together. We’ll engage in some playful … Read More
Dr Carla van Laar
Artist | Creative Arts Therapist
Master of Creative Arts Therapy
Doctor of Therapeutic Arts Practice
PACFA Reg. Clinical and Accredited Supervisor – PACFA
Carla van Laar is a painter and therapeutic arts practitioner from Australia. Born in Brisbane, Carla is first generation Australian on her Dutch grandparents side, and 7th generation through her maternal bloodline who were mostly English and came to Australia in the early colonisation of the 1800s. Her mother grew up in remote North Queensland and most of her extended family still live up North.
Carla currently lives and works in Boon Wurrung Country in the South Eastern coastal town of Inverloch, paying deep respects to the First Peoples of the Kulin Nations whose land was never ceded and will always be Aboriginal land.
Identifying as a cisgender woman, Carla is passionately disinterested in socially constructed identities that disempower anyone. Carla has over 25 years’ experience working with people and the arts for health and well-being in community organisations, justice, health and education contexts.
Carla’s first book “Bereaved Mother’s Heart” was published in 2007 and broke social taboos about maternal grief. From 2008-18 she established and ran an independent art therapy studio and gallery in Melbourne. Her Doctoral research “Seeing Her Stories” continues the mission to make women’s stories visible, through art.
Carla has worked as an Art Therapy educator at a number of training institutions since 2001. She is a practicing artist and in 2018 received an Artist Fellowship at RMIT’s creative research lab, “Creative Agency”. She insists on being part of a creative revolution in which art re-embodies lived experience, brings us to our senses, makes us aware of the interconnectedness of all life and is an agent of social change.
Carla’s book “Seeing her stories” presents her Doctoral research into making unseen stories visible through art. It was published in 2020 and is available to read for free on this website under the Seeing Her Stories menu.
CLICK HERE to Listen to Dr Carla interviewed on the FAT MOON Podcast
FAT MOON Podcast, created by Kirsty Greene, is a platform for creative therapists to connect and learn from each other.
In each FAT Moon episode, Kirsty interviews a creative therapist from around the globe.
Watch this short clip filmed at Carla’s “Unsung Spaces” exhibition during her fellowship at RMIT University’s “Creative Agency”.
Anna Kellerman of “Mama Creatives” invited Carla as a special guest. In this interview, Carla talks about being a woman, creative and therapist, being a bereaved mother, her journey into creative arts therapy, radical research and the art of activism and social change.
THE EMERGING COLOUR OF A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE with Leeza Stratford and Alieta Belle
Explore the emerging colour of a different perspective while watching the cauldron boil In a gentle, hands on workshop we hold a sense of openness to what bubbles up in the moment as we explore the creation of … Read More
EARTH ART OFFERING with Melissa McDevitt Weston
Earth Art Offering – introducing Ochre Image: “Earth’s Flow” 2022 by Melissa McDevitt Weston. This piece was inspired by how Mother Earth creates such beautiful images in the shapes, colours and textures of the land and waterways. The … Read More
TEA MOVEMENT – a peaceful tea ceremony and therapeutic yoga with the team from Art Tea-rapy
THE TEA MOVEMENT – with Su Mei Tan, Eric Jiancong Zhang, Chanudi Wickramasinha and Weiyu Guan Su Mei, Eric, Chanudi and Weiyu join us on Sunday 7th May at the 2023 Creative Mental Health Forum to share this integrative, … Read More
HEART SONG – Brodie Caporn shares how to make music and meaning together with children and families
HEART SONG – Including Song Writing in your therapeutic practice – NO MUSIC SKILLS REQUIRED! Brodie is back in 2023! Brodie Caporn joins us on Sunday 7th May at the 2023 Creative Mental Health Forum to share this process … Read More
Publications & Resources
SNAPSHOTS OF A BEREAVED MOTHER’S HEART – RESEARCH In Carla’s 2001 Master’s research project, she investigated her own lived experience of being a bereaved Mother using arts based and narrative methods. Through this research, findings were generated that illuminated aspects … Read More
Curriculum Vitae
Dr Carla van Laar MCAT Prof Doc ThAP PACFA reg. Clinical 27769 PACFA accredited supervisor Arts Practitioner, Educator, Researcher and Therapist “With over 25 years experience working with people to enhance life through art, I am committed to creativity and … Read More
