by Fiona Moon, outgoing Events & Programmes Lead
After two meaningful years at CHWA, I’m sad and excited to say I’ll be moving on at the end of June to pursue my PhD—today I’m reflecting on what a journey of growth it’s been for the sector, the organisation and for me as an individual and artist.
When I first joined CHWA in 2023, I knew I was stepping into something unique; a sector and role that combined creativity, community, care and social change. Initially joining for six months to deliver our Making Change Conference, I couldn’t quite have predicted how influential these two years would become. As Events and Programmes Lead, I’ve had the privilege of working across a variety of projects and programmes—all supporting artists, organisations, and communities to carve out brave spaces for connection, expression and meaningful questioning.
As my role developed to support and lead on other areas of CHWAs work, I was able to balance utilising existing skills, and being exposed to new concepts, ideas and ways of working that had felt too ephemeral or out of reach previously. I’ve been lucky to meet and be inspired by so many people making quiet, meaningful change in a thousand different ways, both locally and nationally. Developing our CHWA Champions as a community of practice, and our recent CHWA Awards ceremony are just two examples of this. And whilst the global context we’re working in has felt increasingly precarious, fraught or unjust, what’s struck me time and time again is the attention to equity, to care, to collaboration, and to the awareness that it’s not just what we do in the world that matters, it’s also about how we move through it. It is no small thing to continue to be soft in a society that feels increasingly hardened.
Even in my short time with CHWA, I’ve seen a significant development in the sector. As an organisation, we’ve grown to encompass new roles and board members, broadened our programme through our partnership with GEM, and strengthened collaborations, such as our work with London Arts and Health for Creativity and Wellbeing Week. Our ongoing conversations around equity, fair pay and diversity have deepened, resulting in our new payment for freelance, low and unwaged colleagues, changes to our awards structure, and our celebratory commissions for Black History Month. We’ve continued to ask big questions around our purpose, direction and what our members need from us, and hold ourselves and each other gently to account. From our colleagues and members, we have seen similar; co-production, fairness, access and inclusion now feel deeply embedded into how we talk about, deliver and reflect on the work.
Of course, it’s much easier to quantify the delivery of a project than all the unseen care that goes into creating the conditions for it to manifest – the work behind the work – but this to me is the most crucial part. It can be hard to explain creative health to others. It exists at the very edgelands; the space between knowing and unknowing, between open and held, between tentatively feeling our way through the existing and blurring and blending to create something new. We can know we are embarking on a project, but not know what practitioners and participants will bring to the space, we can have a handle on our local structures or leaders but know that change is imminent. As the needs of the sector swell and morph in response to global challenges, it feels like CHWA is increasingly navigating this edgelands territory – the space between art and activism, creativity and social justice, advocacy and de-growth. The ability and skill required to traverse this edgeland space with sensitivity, grace and passion (not to mention guiding our community along the way) is one of CHWA’s and creative health’s great strengths. It is a thread that has woven unwaveringly through every single person I’ve encountered, and in our current climate, is nothing short of inspiring.
I’m leaving at what feels like a time of shifting horizons in creative health and in CHWA, and I’m excited to be continuing my own academic and artistic journey as a CHWA member, onlooker and event attender. I’m particularly inspired by the early conversations about our 2026 conference, the strengthening of our partnership and infrastructure building in Yorkshire and Derbyshire, and the launch of our new equity action plan. Further afield, I’m excited by the recent access research project, Cue Backstage, announced by Birds of Paradise, and the growing focus on care and wellbeing for artists, particularly the recent Performing Anxiety resource funded by Baring Foundation.
I’ve learned so much these past two years — about the sector, about myself, and about how deep change can happen when we prioritise co-production, care, and imagination. During my time here, I’ve continued my own work as a writer, theatre maker and community artist, and have felt a deepening of rigour in how I approach this. Whilst there are some very practical, tangible things CHWA has given me that will continue to shape my work, for example the Creative Health Quality Framework, what I’ll take away most is a little harder to quantify.
It’s a feeling. An anchor. A guiding set of values and practices that have strengthened and galvanised in me only because of how consistently and generously they have been demonstrated to me by the team, our partners, stakeholders and colleagues, and those I’ve met briefly in passing. To see a sector so committed to living these values is like a breath of fresh air, and I’m truly grateful to each and every one of you.
In short, this work changes you. It brings you back to yourself, to community, and to the reason we continue to create, even in (and perhaps most crucially in) the most unsettling of times.