NEXAA’s Mission:
Intermodal Expressive Arts, established in the United States in the early 1980s, is a way of working therapeutically by combining the artistic practices of visual arts, movement, drama, music, writing, and other creative processes to foster deep personal growth and community development. NEXAA’s goal is to educate about and advocate for the role, value, and practice of intermodal Expressive Arts in the Netherlands by integrating already established intermodal expressive arts knowledge and practices into the psychotherapeutic, educational, anthropological, medical, and sociological disciplines.
We aim to do this by:
- Introducing and furthering the understanding of the principles of intermodal practices as a viable and efficient method for promoting mental health and well-being.
- Creating training and education programs to provide foundational and advanced skills and knowledge of the theory and practices of ExA.
- Creating opportunities for the gathering, publishing, and exchange of research, knowledge, and developments in and around the intermodal ExA field
- Weaving an international consortium of partners.
- Advocating for the status of intermodal Expressive Arts as a valuable resource to address societal problems and mental health needs in the Dutch context.
- Accumulating and making publicly available research pertaining to the use of expressive arts in education, psychology, community development/building, and as a therapeutic healing tool in a shareable database.
- Hosting various symposia, seminars, and conferences that bring together EXA experts, practitioners, and potential students for collaboration, research, training, and sharing of methods and data.
- Building a robust membership community so that all topics and developments in the Netherlands and internationally within the EXA field have a place for exchange through interactive platforms.
- Adding our voice in the establishment of professional criteria for accreditation, competency, and financial reimbursement policies within the field.