Creating a Fantasy City: Changing our Point of View

“Creating a Fantasy City: Changing our Point of View” is a creative writing workshop that allows participants to use writing techniques to express themselves and their feelings by assuming different roles, changing points of view and to reflect on their life experiences related to unpleasant and stressful events (such as the ongoing war on Ukraine).

Creating a Fantasy City: Changing our Point of View” uses the methodology of creative writing, a form of artistic expression, inspiring participants to use their imagination to bring personal experiences and views to their work. The change in point of you and taking different roles to approach the same topic enables the participants to perceive the topic comprehensively and facilitates the approach of unpleasant emotions due to traumatic experiences and of collective trauma.

The workshop was initially developed for Ukrainian female refugees living in Athens. Still, it is suitable for diverse groups of learners and age groups.

The objectives of the workshop are:

• to imagine a safe place as a dream city;
• to practise changing our point of view according to the taking up of different roles (city mayor, citizen, visitor);
• to get acquainted with creative writing techniques;
• to use creative writing as a way to express oneself and feelings.

The materials needed for this workshop are a pencil or pen and a piece of paper available for all the participants. Also, a flipchart will be useful for the facilitator to explain the steps of the activity.

The facilitator should select a location for the workshop that is a space considered safe by all participants. A place that provides a physically and emotionally safe environment for all participants, especially a place where people can freely express themselves without fear of prejudice or any negative judgment. The process of sharing personal information may be stressful for some of the participants, so the facilitator should be alert to understand any inconvenience, take the lead and handle the situation.

In addition, the facilitator should have a familiarity in using creative writing techniques in order to be able to explain the necessary steps, the techniques and the creative process.

1. Participants Imagine a fantasy city, a safe place where they would like to live.
2. Participants are asked to write two paragraphs from the point of view of the city leader.
3. Participants are asked to read their passages and share their views.
4. Then, participants are asked to change their point of view and write two brief paragraphs assuming the role of a citizen or a visitor. They are invited to share their opinions with the group.
5. The next step is for the participants to write two brief paragraphs from the point of view of their 5-year-old self.
6. The final task for the participants is to share and reflect on their views and passages.

The final step of the workshop is for participants to share their different points of views and self-reflect on their texts. The following questions may help with the reflection process: “What are the common elements of the safe cities you have described?”, “What changed in your way of thinking when your perspectives changed, when you assumed different roles?”, “What were the difficulties you faced during the different phases of the activity, when you took on the role of mayor of the city, when you took on the role of citizen, when you had to return to the age of 5?”, “What were your feelings at each stage and how do you feel now?”.

The workshop can be adapted to suit coherent and diverse groups of learners. Participants may share personal information and this process may be stressful for some of them, so the facilitator should be alert to understand any inconvenience, take the lead and handle the situation.

The group size for this workshop does not matter, but it is more challenging to manage the workshop with the participation of many individuals. Working with a big group of people makes it harder to make people feel safe to share about themselves. 8 to 10 participants would be the ideal group size.

The complexity of the workshop can be rated at 2. The facilitator needs to take some time to prepare the different phases of the workshop, review the methodology and prepare the workshop’s reflection phase.