In collaboration with Alma Quinto, Soni Kum conducted an art workshop called Dream Workshop at CRIBS in Manila. CRIBS is a shelter where girls who have been sexually abused are protected and live together.

During the workshop, the girls were instructed to draw, talk, or use their bodies to express their dreams. In many cases, traumatized girls expressing their own experiences through words can make them repeat their mental damage. It's painful, but expressing it through art makes it possible to communicate our inner self to the outside through performance. The girls gained confidence and released fear and heartache.

The dream could be a recurring nightmare, a happy dream, and so forth. In most cases, it is not easy for the girls to talk directly about their experiences because it re-traumatizes them, but through art, a soft approach, they can express their inner selves. For example, Girl A is a survivor of incest. At age 18, she shows a lot of leadership qualities. She is an orphan who resides in CRIBS with her two sisters, who are also survivors. All of them are artistically inclined. She told me about a recurring dream. In her dream, she experienced her father as a terrifying creature out to devour her. In reality, her father had victimized her. Her mother, on the other hand, had provided her protection. She did a beautiful performance piece in which she wrapped herself up with a piece of long white fabric and sat beneath a tree, covering a little girl under her skirt to protect her from a zombie. Her performance was visually arresting and poetic.