"Versa": Art as Therapy for Perinatal Loss

Disney’s new short film, “Versa,” is an incredible example of the use of art as therapy right from its inception. It opens with the Director, Malcon Pierce, vulnerably sharing his family’s personal experience with perinatal loss as inspiration for the film. Instead of burying himself in work and continuing to try to outrun his pain, he shares how he finally lets it in and finds healing through animating his story. Traumatic experiences surpass words, as do creative masterpieces.

Viewers are invited to witness the couple’s intimate journey of rupture and repair through lyrical dance, cosmic imagery, and evocative music. After their life-shattering event, the characters have to piece themselves and their relationship back together like the delicate and powerful Japanese art of “Kintsugi,” where ceramic cracks are filled with gold leaf and valued for their unique imperfections. 

Although critics have flagged the heteronormative lens and quintessentially Disney storyboard sequence, as a perinatal art therapist I was moved by the embrace of “sensitive” subject matter–”viewer discretion” and all. “Versa” touches on so many universal elements of what makes us human–in how we love, lose, and start over along the way.