Making Space for Curiosity, Connection & Creative Risk
Cultural Education, Youth Programming & Community Engagement
I am an artist, educator, facilitator, and community practitioner with over a decade of experience developing programs with young people, educators, artists, and community organizations.
My work brings together creative education, participatory arts, somatic practice, conflict transformation, community engagement, reproductive justice, and collaborative learning. I design and facilitate workshops, youth programs, cultural projects, and learning environments that support creativity, communication, participation, and collective problem-solving.
My experience spans schools, youth-serving organizations, cultural institutions, community organizations, and grassroots initiatives in the United States and Germany.
Areas of Practice
Youth Programming & Education
Developing programs for children and young people that combine creative expression, movement, storytelling, dialogue, and collaborative learning.
Community Engagement
Building relationships with community members, schools, organizations, educators, artists, and local partners to develop programs rooted in community needs, knowledge, and lived experience.
Arts & Cultural Education
Developing interdisciplinary arts and cultural programs that invite participants to express, contribute, and record their experiences, knowledge, and creative perspectives.
Facilitation & Conflict Transformation
Facilitating groups through dialogue, conflict transformation, restorative practices, collective reflection, and collaborative problem-solving.
Program Development & Coordination
Taking projects from initial concept through implementation, including program design, curriculum development, partnership-building, outreach, production, documentation, evaluation, and grant administration.
Creative & Embodied Learning
Using movement, dance, somatics, storytelling, visual art, performance, games, and sensory exploration to create varied and accessible approaches to learning.
Interested in collaborating?
If you are looking for a facilitator, workshop leader, or educator in Berlin or beyond, I welcome inquiries to collaborate.
What I Do
I develop programs.
From concept and curriculum through funding, coordination, delivery, documentation, and evaluation.
I work with young people.
I design creative learning environments where young people can experiment, collaborate, express themselves, and develop leadership.
I bring people together.
I facilitate groups, build partnerships, and create structures for dialogue, exchange, and collective learning.
I use artistic practice as a tool for learning.
Movement, storytelling, performance, visual art, film, and creative research become ways of exploring complex questions together.
I work across cultures, generations, and lived experiences.
My projects have brought together people across age, culture, language, migration experience, and professional background.
Recent Projects
Somatic Storytelling + Archiving Workshop for Wilkommensklassen is a collaborative arts education project co-facilitated with teaching artist Riley Cavanaugh at the Ruth-Cohn-School in Berlin. Designed for Willkommenklassen students aged 16–21 who had recently arrived from Ukraine, Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Somalia, and Afghanistan, the project integrated somatic movement, music, visual art, and digital storytelling to support multiple forms of expression beyond language.
This workshop can be adapted for schools, youth programs, and educational or community contexts, and is available for booking in Berlin and internationally.
Tidal Bodies: Reproductive Somatics is a somatic community care and collective imagination practice and archive centering reproductive experiences and speculative futures. Through workshops and storytelling circles, participants engage personal and collective reproductive narratives while generating and archiving somatic practices that support community care and movement-building in the present and into uncertain futures.
Tidal Bodies has been facilitated in workshops, residencies, and community contexts in Berlin and internationally. Inquire about bringing it to your community or students.
Professional Background
Youth Program Director — Richmond Peace Education Center
Initiator, Educator & Project Lead — Ruth-Cohn-Schule/Stiftung für Kulturelle Weiterbildung und Kulturberatung
Art & Classroom Educator — Berlin Cosmopolitan School Kindergarten
Teaching Artist — InterAct English, ART 180, independent projects
Community Engagement Strategist — Center for Doula Pathways
Independent Artist, Educator & Facilitator — Berlin / Richmond
My professional background spans youth development, cultural education, community organizing, arts programming, facilitation, and interdisciplinary artistic practice.
“Cristina brings a wealth of knowledge to her facilitation work. Given the content of our project, she prompted us to critically think about the intentions of our project and its connection to race and racism. Centering the voices of the most vulnerable communities, she asked us to reflect on how white supremacy culture shows up in our day-to-day interactions. She then transformed this moment of sharing into knowledge that we used for our artistic process. Her presence, grace, and honesty guided us in a supportive collaborative process of understanding and agreements. She helped us to firmly connect our artistic choices with racial justice. We walked away from the facilitation session with a strong sense of how we can stand firmly against racism and how we individually and collectively can advocate for racial justice. These are tools that I know bring to my own classroom, projects, and everyday life. Thank you, Cristina!”
