From 2000-2014, Barbara worked as a programmer and artistic director of Arts Centres BUDA and Vooruit. In 2014, she said goodbye to the arts sector and took a year to recharge and reorient. In that context, she trained as a facilitator of farewell rituals at Green Fuse in Totnes (UK). She also attended additional workshops around transition as well as shaping life and death. As a result, she has become a unique connector between art/care/farewells.

From 2015 to 2018, she worked as a researcher at KASK, School of Arts, where she designed new physical and mental spaces for farewell. Simultaneously, she founded Beyond the Spoken, a private practice where she guides people in their grieving process by creating and facilitating a unique farewell ritual for them.

Barbara views creating rituals as part of a larger transition movement and a broader social story. What we do for ourselves invariably also affects our relationship with our loved ones, society and all living creatures on this earth… all of it.

From the above background and thanks to ongoing training and supervision, Barbara scrupulously shapes what Beyond the Spoken offers.

'Barbara builds palaces with people.'

^{MARIJKE HOOGENBOOM
director Zürcher Hochschule der Künste}

'You are like a midwife to me now. After giving birth to my children, my midwife was my warm beacon. She had been there, she understood me. She encouraged me and showed me what I could do when I thought I would never make it. Like her, you held me in a safe warm space where I was allowed to be, where my grief was allowed to be, where I was allowed to experience that I am more than what had overwhelmed me for so long. You gave me the strength to step through my pain and sorrow.'

^ANNELIES

'Barbara is a transformative transformer, who senses the slightest change and adapts to it. She creates space for personal growth, healing, artistic practice and research. In the face of burnout and other forms of unrecognised loss, she places rituals beyond words. Butterflies depart from her fingertips.'

^{KATHLEEN MELIS
Sociale Innovatiefabriek}

› Master’s degree in Arts Sciences, Theatre Studies
› Postgraduate study in Cultural Management
› Funeral Celebrant, Totnes (UK)
› Ritual ceremonies, OBOD (UK)
› Basic training in trauma therapy, Open Mind Centre
› Techniques in grief therapy, Verbinding in verlies
› Living loss, Verbinding in verlies
› Energetic work with the grieving body, Verbinding in verlies
› Confidential counselling training, Idewé
› From welcome speech to closing sentence, Werkplaats voor Levensverhalen
› Mindfulness training, Breathworks
› Introduction to energy work, centrum voor energiewerk
› Active Hope: the work that reconnects, Joanna Macy