Stories and their dramatization through play are the core of human happiness and the continuing development of children, young people and adults, indeed are universally important for the welfare of all children. Its a connection to a vital source of pleasure, transformation and a revitalisation of energy. Material theatre or playing with objects, or creating story maps , with installations with thermacol; and figurines made of newspapers , creates new pathways and new ideas, which are generated as the Arts based therapist in me continuously works with children within various institutions . Tactile work invokes the kinaesthetic intelligence of a child and with the use of materials , there is a reworking of our senses and as soon as that happens there is a reassessment of memories . let’s understand this by understanding what’s the nature of institutions for children, be it a juvenile home, a school in a militarised zone , a monastery , a school in deep suburbs. I have worked as an arts-based practitioner facilitating safe spaces for children to be held by some form of an arts practice and this about these spaces .

We will explore in this paper, how the play space and creative groupwork becomes a powerful empowering space for children that gives them a voice to express , specially when they start working with tactile materials that further gives shape to the stories they carry in their” inner world” .

All institutions often generate discipline and punish, it also brings about alienation. Even though all institutions don’t bring cruelty or harshness it does breed a space of disconnection from the outside world. If there is an atmosphere of harsh discipline particularly with children who have been left at its care, the child will experience entrapment. The Arts practice enables movement and gives personal freedom as fantasies become tactile and in “total institutions “ they become more “visible” to themselves and to the others . To explain total institutions are those institutions that do not give space for individual identities to flourish and are totalising and controlling in nature.