The arts, creativity, and imagination are agents of wellness: they help keep the individual resilient, aid recovery and foster a flourishing society. In this University of The Arts London short course, participants will explore both the practice of creative wellbeing and art-making while understanding some of the key positions around the arts & health movement in the UK.

The creative arts help make sense of our human condition and bring about positive physiological and psychological changes. Currently, the arts are even being offered on prescription by GPs to aid in treatments of depression and isolation. Understanding why and how these processes work will be central to the course. Meaning, purpose, and connection are proven to improve health. Participating in a creative process helps engage, communicate and express through a non-verbal language which often best reflects our emotional state.

Workshops will be hands-on creating artwork while also self-reflecting. The sessions are part seminar-based with specific readings followed by practical exercises exploring:

• The emotional impact of art-making
• mind-mapping and cognition
• death, dying and grieving
• Dementia and design
• Difference between Art Therapy and therapeutic value of art
• Disability and art
• Identity and auto-ethnography

Participating in the course will both allow you to understand your own role in managing health and wellbeing and provide you with tools to bring this knowledge into other areas of life such as work and family. The course will explore a variety of materials and techniques which have been developed to help promote and maintain mental health and wellbeing. Every student will have the opportunity to design and deliver their own practical exercise based on the learnings.

Course Outcomes

The course will show how the arts can help meet major challenges facing health and social care including ageing, long-term conditions, loneliness and physical activity. The course will also explore the difference between art as therapy and creative art therapy. Students will produce works of art throughout the course.

By the end of the course you will have:

• Read key publications in the arts & wellbeing movement
• Connected to the larger network of practitioners and artists interested in and delivering arts & health initiatives
• Tested out a variety of practical ways to deliver art workshops and exercises
• Understood your own practice in relation to health & wellbeing
• Delivered a workshop to your classmates at the end of course based on your specific interests and guided by the learning