News and Blogs

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News

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four people sit around a table covered with laptops, snacks and papers
@inspiredmaephotography - CHWA Board meeting, November 2022
Seeking new Directors for the Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance CICDeadline: 11am on Monday 28th October
The Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance (CHWA) and London Arts and Health (LAH) are pleased to be collaborating on a paid opportunity for Black History Month 2024.
Arts in Care Homes is a programme by the National Activity Providers Association (NAPA) that underscores the well-being benefits of arts, creativity, and cultural engagement in care settings.

Blog

Diana Amma Gyankoma Abankwah is a Ugandan-Ghanaian solo dance artist, painter, writer, musician, and interdisciplinary artist based in Stoke-on-Trent where she emigrated from Rwanda in 2022.
Writerz and Scribez Writerz & Scribez is a Black-led arts company working at the intersection of art, wellbeing, and equity. View their interpretation of this year's Black History Month theme, 'Reclaiming Narratives' via the link below.
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white woman with mousy brown hair placing her hands on the back of a white woman with dark brown hair
Performing Medicine Workshop. Image Credit: Imperial Health Charity.
Winning the award for Practising Well was a very meaningful and heartening recognition of the care and attention that we bring to all aspects of Performing Medicine’s work. We were delighted to be able to shine a light on the important contribution of our Associate Artists, their wellbeing and our role in artist development.

Stories of lived experience

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an abstract digital artwork with a dark background featuring bright prin, blues and fine points of yellow light in the centre
‘Untitled’ By Casey Francis (Mad Truth)
...through creativity we can transform adversity to beauty and in the process transform ourselves. We can create our own lives as if we are creating a work of art. Instilled within all of our experience are layers of meaning, understanding and connection. Art is empathy, it is communication. Art allows us to step outside of ourselves, and see something inside that we could not recognise because of our external circumstances, our pain, our fear, our doubt.
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Venn diagram showing the intersections of 'queer, 'creativity' and 'health'
Illustrations by MJ Barker
What would it mean to ‘queer’ creative health? Why might we need to, and, if so, how? I was given the opportunity to first delve into these questions through a PhD scholarship I completed in 2019. My literature review explored longer histories of the field of Arts in Health as part of exploring its relationship to people and place.  
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Tina Blaber with guitar against a wall
Tina Blaber
Our existence is embedded in culture – it’s all around us – and I think the need for this, as social creatures, is an inherent part of our make-up, as human beings.

A Day in the Life

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white woman with mousy brown hair placing her hands on the back of a white woman with dark brown hair
Performing Medicine Workshop. Image Credit: Imperial Health Charity.
Winning the award for Practising Well was a very meaningful and heartening recognition of the care and attention that we bring to all aspects of Performing Medicine’s work. We were delighted to be able to shine a light on the important contribution of our Associate Artists, their wellbeing and our role in artist development.
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Laura Phillips at The CHWA Gather In, The Herbert 2021
Image: Jenny Harper
I work for both CHWA, and for Derby Museums [...] There’s no such thing as a typical day. I really like the strategic and policy-level thinking, research and development, as well as the face to face delivery and relationship building. No two days are the same and that is one of the highlights of my work.
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An olive skinned woman with dark, curly, brown hair wearing a bright fushia dress sitting on a blue chair outside smiling
Lydia is a multi-disciplinary artist and activist based in London, who's work focuses on building life-affirming relations and systems through radical creativity and collaboration.

International

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The National Organization for Arts in Health is pleased to invite presenters to submit a proposal for the fifth annual second virtual national conference, The Art of Resilience on October 19 – 21, 2021.
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Hear and Now 2019 in Bedford, co-produced by Orchestras Live and the Philharmonia Orchestra © Beth Walsh
Hear and Now 2019 in Bedford, co-produced by Orchestras Live and the Philharmonia Orchestra © Beth Walsh
An invitation on behalf of the international Music for Social Impact research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council to participate in a survey of musicians in all pa
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a woman discusses a picture at the Crocker Museum with a group of seated women
Crocker Museum, Sacramento, California
Seeking participants for new online study to find out.