We have interviewed the art therapist Anna Maria Moglia, who has a degree from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, and is a member of Artis, an association that realizes public health art therapy projects, whether therapeutic or for rehabilitation.

For VIDAS, Anna Maria Moglia follows art therapy work proposed to kids who are guests of the Casa Sollievo Bimbi, which is supported by the Fondazione Prossimo Mio.

As Marta Scrignaro - in charge of the educational services at VIDAS - explains, “Artistic acts are the acts that characterize us as human beings. Since the dawn of its history, humans have felt the need to make their presence known with a mark. Art - iconic and symbolic power recovered every time we repeat the acts and thanks to them - brings us into contact with our authentic self, allowing us to express ourselves when words are impotent. Therefore, art therapy becomes a pedagogical device that permits us to predispose for and in the minors, parents, and siblings the material, immaterial and symbolic conditions able to activate a process of searching for meaning and well-being.”

1. What is the Casa Sollievo Bimbi of Vidas?
A.M.M. Casa Sollievo Bimbi is a pediatric hospice, a place of public health assistance that hosts children affected by illnesses of which they can’t be cured. Here, the young patients are assisted with palliative care, so not just medical care, but also interventions regarding emotional, psychological, and educational aspects. It is a place that accommodates the entire nuclear family in little apartments that are furnished with every comfort, and in which communal spaces are present in order to favor interacting and playing.

2. What is meant by art therapy, and what happens during the encounters?
A.M.M. Art therapy consists in brief individual experiences during which we propose simple artistic activities. The goal is to make the most of even little abilities of the children that we encounter, giving them the possibility to express themselves and to tell us about themselves in a moment when this may be difficult. In agreement with the team and with the educators, we encounter the children or their family members, and we propose a clear path, a planned project always modeled around the abilities of the people we have in front of us, in order to accommodate truly everyone.

For example, this year we are working with clay. For children with limited movement, we propose a sensorial path beginning with powdered clay in which we immerge their hands and feet to transform it into liquid clay so that they can experience physical contact with it, and leave their imprints on small squares. All the small squares are then united to form a large mosaic. 

For those with a greater freedom of movement, we propose solid clay, instead, which can be modeled by hand or with little tools, in order to leave marks that recount their uniqueness. The sensorial experience is central because, for these children, it has particular importance.

3. What are the principal changes or benefits that you have observed in the children who participate in these encounters?
A.M.M.It’s difficult to generalize because it depends on the characteristics and the pathologies of the children we encounter. There are, however, two common elements: the experience of beauty and the sensorial experience. 

The experience of beauty because every activity has the goal of ending up with a small final work of art. We don’t propose “little” works. It’s important to us that the final results are beautiful because each of us is made for the beautiful and for beauty. So, it’s important that even these children have experiences of the beautiful, that they themselves can be makers and protagonists of something beautiful. Sometimes, if a child has a hard time expressing this, it’s the parents who – looking at the results – are moved and grateful for the experience that their child had had.

Sensorial experiences, on the other hand, enrich. Contact with different materials and consistencies stimulates, and aids growth and maturation.

4. Is there an experience or a particular moment that struck you, and that you would like to share with us?
A.M.M. There would be lots! I have one in mind that has remained in my heart. I helped a young girl who was homebound. She was very limited in her movements, and was only able to barely move a hand. We worked with painting and stamps. Dragging color on a slab, she created streaks, leaving her mark in this way. At the end of the activity, we chose the most beautiful streak together, and we framed it to highlight that little movement, and we gave it to her mother. It was Christmas time. The mother, astonished and proud, decided to wrap it up, and to give it to the father. On Christmas Day, we received from him a message full of gratitude for that little art work created by his daughter.

We often think that in these kinds of situations our children can do little, but in this case she had given something of beauty, unique, hers.

Highlighting and appreciating these works is part of our task because to highlight even a small ability is very therapeutic and gives value to the person. 

5. How important, in your opinion, is the support of entities such as FPM to make these activities possible?
A.M.M. It’s fundamental, above all here at the Casa Sollievo Bimbi, where every guest is welcomed and appreciated in all phases of their illness. For children who seem to be able to do little, art therapy is precious. It permits them to leave a mark, to say who they are, and to create works that are witnesses to their presence and to their uniqueness.

Thank yuo