The art of play: anchoring, creative apperception, and psychosocial wellbeing in a community arts centre

This article reports on a pilot workshop program, Anchoring: Finding Your Centre , delivered at Bankstown Arts Centre, Sydney, located in a culturally and linguistically diverse region experiencing elevated psychosocial stress associated with social isolation and dislocation. While arts institutions are increasingly framed as civic resources, many who could benefit do not identify as regular participants. This exploratory study forms part of a broader project investigating how playful, trauma-aware cultural practices can support capacities for managing stress, loneliness, and disconnection in everyday life. The program was built around the concept of anchoring—a felt sense of safety, connection and orientation that enables people to engage openly with their surroundings. Informed by Donald Winnicott’s theories of play and creative apperception, the program comprised three two-hour workshops integrating trauma-informed expressive practice with imaginative and embodied forms of engagement. Data consisted of facilitator observations, WHO-5 wellbeing surveys administered pre- and post-program, and follow-up interviews. Participants ( n = 6) reported calm, relief from anxiety, creative renewal, and meaningful connection with others, spaces, and everyday objects. Four inter-related processes were identified (spatial orientation, imaginative projection, embodied grounding and relational play), each associated with a distinct form of anchoring: in place, in objects, in the body and in others. WHO-5 scores are reported descriptively; with only five participants completing both surveys, they cannot indicate change. Wellbeing appeared to emerge through relational modes of attention rather than any single activity, with several participants reporting continuing practices beyond the workshops. These findings suggest that cultural participation may support wellbeing not only through encounters with artworks, but through forms of attentional anchoring that participants can carry into everyday life.