Arts Disaster and Crisis Preparedness Conference 2026

Art has the unique strength of bringing firsthand experiences into disaster preparedness and response work. Mainstream emergency preparedness education, disaster reporting, and support for survivors tends to be fact-based, dry and didactic, hiding the human experiences and costs of these disasters. But how do we build collective narratives that tell a more complete story? What participatory story-building tools do we have as artists? How do we build shared stories in diverse communities with very different lived experiences? Join our group of artists to experience collective storytelling tools developed during our pre-conference creative practice lab.


This session will present tools developed in the pre-conference lab by artists, disaster responders and emergency medical providers. We will explore movement and storytelling methodologies from a variety of pedagogies, discuss our development process, and try out some strategies together. Join us as we present new ideas, and some tried-and-true strategies by Faultline Ensemble, our ensemble of artists, health workers and first responders.