A Day in the Life

We start and end our sessions by standing in a circle and singing ‘one love, keep us together. We are, voices of hope.’ How we came to sing this, was through conflict. After the conflict, we decided to create a new space, and a new way of being in space, through a new song. A new song = a new space.

Archaeology is a magical process of discovery with huge opportunities for team working, creative practice and largely outdoor physical activity and has been shown to support wellbeing in a myriad of ways.

There is so much inspiring work out there at the moment which is a great antidote to the current state of the world – and simultaneously a frustration because most of it is under the radar of the traditional media.

I initially trained in Fashion and Textiles, so have come from arts and culture background, before my practice developed into socially engaged arts over 8 years ago. I became disillusioned with producing artwork for consumption and instead wanted to share the benefits of cultural engagement for health and wellbeing.

Meet Helena, CHWA's new Creative Health & Equity Lead for Derbyshire, and learn what a typical day looks like in her new role.

Meet our new Events and Programme Lead, Lara as we find out what a typical day looks like in her new role.

Meet our new Barnsley Creative Health Lead, Luisa Golob. She shares what a typical day looks like in the world of Creative Health.

Find out what a typical day looks like for glass artist, Ric Raithby, commissioned to design the award for the upcoming CHWA Awards on the 23rd April.

My work has mainly engaged with culture, health and wellbeing within a research framework. This has included mixed-methods quasi-experimental research measuring the wellbeing benefits of cultural participation, to wider considerations of the possibilities of the museum as a space of care and the application of care ethics to museum practice.

Find out what a day in the life looks like for our new Co-Chair Thahmina Begum.

Meet one of our new Directors, Jemilea Wisdom-Baako...

Find out what a day in the life looks like for past CHWA Award Winners, Kazzum Arts.

We asked past CHWA Award Winners, Performing Medicine, what a day in the life looks like and how the award impacted their organisation.

What have you been doing today? Is that a typical day for you? Today started with a team meeting to bring our core staff together to update on progress across our programmes. After this, project specific meetings, some follow-up tasks, and emails with our partners.  

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.

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.

Louise Campion is Head of Learning & Engagement at the Holburne Museum in Bath and the new Project Lead for our Working Together Programme in collaborations with GEM (Group for Education in Museums). Find out what a day in her life looks like.

Alexis Butt has recently joined our team of Regional Champions, with over 20 years experience of working in arts and culture and currently working as a General Manager for the NCCH, she shares what a typical day for her looks like.

Evaluator, researcher and educator, Siân Hunter Dodsworth, talks to us about her exploration of artistic, cultural and heritage practice in improving health and wellbeing both in Mexico and here in the UK.

CSA survivor, Arts Activist and Artistic Director, Viv Gordon, speaks to us about how arts and social justice informs their day to day life. Viv will be taking part in one of our panel discussions at the National Conference in October.

Change, Act! CO-Directors Paul Formosa and Charlotte White let us in on what a day in their life looks like ahead of their workshop at the Making Change national conference.

Our Regional Champion and Age Friendly Creative Manager for Age UK Oxfordshire, Helen Foundation, shares a typical day with us. Helen is part of the Creative Ageing Lived Experience Network (CALEN), who will be speaking at this years conference.

Ahead of their workshop as part of the Making Change national conference in October, Artist and Performing Recovery magazine editorial board member leon clowes talks us through a day in their working life.

So far, no two days at CHWA have been the same, which I really like. There’s a mixture of operational, creative and strategic tasks and it really helps me use every part of my brain. Right now I’m heavily focused on organising the conference, which involves a lot of collaboration with partners and suppliers, so there’s usually at least one zoom call each day.

My great-grandmother was admitted to an asylum around 1910, and I never found out why, or what her life in the institution was like. What I discovered, baffled me; I came across a wide range of recreations offered to patients as part of a new treatment regime, which really challenged my perception of asylums and their patients.

My recipe for a happy healthy day involves a walk, some kind of movement (a two minute kitchen-dance, some stretches or just pegging out the washing) and some meditation.

Following the birth of her son in 2014, Kheyla founded Mother Nature’s Recipes, a company that focuses on making room for the necessity of self-care in motherhood from a holistic perspective. She also co-founds Birthing In Colour, a charitable organisation that creates safe spaces online for black and brown birthing bodies and volunteers as a Peer Supporter for the Association of Breastfeeding Mothers.

At the moment I’m working with a Craftspace, a brilliant organisation based in Birmingham, who have commissioned the project Drag Declares Emergency. We are launching a digital exhibition and series of resources this week as part of the project so my main focus is on that.

Today I have been out on my bike. It is almost a year ago since I made a commitment to myself to go out for a ride every day that I possibly could, and to write something about what I discovered on my ride. The same ride, a different journey, every day, for a year. 

After working in the voluntary and public sector as project and change manager for nearly three decades I decided to fully immerse myself in my art practice. After a number of years of research based studio practice (sculpture & installation) I became increasing committed to socially engaged art.

During the last 15 years my work has centred around my health as I grow older. I’ve documented and interpreted my medical notes/ scans and worked alongside my surgeon in providing evidence for art/creative acts having benefits to healing and wellbeing.

My teens were spent volunteering in a number of different places where I had the chance to explore the relevance of music within care and this led me to set up Music as Therapy in 1995 and to train as a music therapist myself.

I graduated in 1997, although previous to this I had been exhibiting and had met the social psychiatrist Prof Julian Leff who had an influence on my direction...

Before living my current reality of creative work and aspirations, I had a scientific background, as I was en route to becoming a doctor, and my motto for my life was “I want to live a life of helping people”. However, I found more fulfilment in approaching this life motto from a creative & arts centred approach.

I was thrilled to be asked to join the board in May 2020! Prior to joining, I had multiple touchpoints with CHWA, first connected with the organisation when I attended the National Conference, ‘Cultures of Health and Wellbeing,’ at the Great North Museum in March 2019. Inspired by the attendees and speakers, I was keen to make a formal connection with CHWA and was introduced to Victoria in 2019 through a colleague at Nesta. It became clear very quickly that the CHWA’s objectives and values were aligned with my passions and past experience building partnerships between community-based arts organisations and health systems in the US

We’re planning the launch event and catching up on the related social media campaign #MyLineInTheSand that invites people to post words of hope, rage and solidarity to stand with survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). We’re busy contacting anyone and everyone who can help to promote the work - arts colleagues, survivor charities and survivor artists, activists and academics.

" I never put labels on it...whenever I felt bad, or good, I would draw."

I have been in art and wellbeing practice for a long time. Often my work has elements that hope to bring to discussing wellbeing. But to be more precise I was part of a network meeting at Fiztwilliam Museum Cambridge in 2017, organised by Culture Health & Wellbeing Alliance, where I leant about the work that has been done in the East region and got to meet locals who were interested and/or working already in the health and art sector.

Although trained as a clinical psychologist, I became interested in the therapeutic value of music a few years ago when I began learning indian raga singing. This is a very meditative spiritual style of singing requiring use of breathing control, focus on keeping the voice steady and being grounded within oneself.

My current path began in 2013 when I started to started to explore mindfulness and related spiritual approaches to mental health, and since then my creative output has gradually shifted towards creating things that are nurturing and healing in intention. I began running writing workshops incorporating mindfulness, plus regular meditation sessions. I have since worked with lots of organisations who share this ethos, helping people in the community to nurture their wellbeing through creativity, spirituality and generally coming together.

Working alongside NHS colleagues was enlightening... It instilled in me a desire to take the skills and knowledge I had acquired and use them more widely. This is what I love to do-to encourage people to discover their creativity and the benefits to wellbeing that accompany it.

Days can range from turbo-charged crafting session, to Makaton-fuelled sensory stories, to coding Raspberry Pis for digital interactions and engagements, to writing a research paper ...My work is broad and varied. I recall a Ted Talk by Emilie Wapnick on the term she coined – ‘multipotentialite’. This comes close to explaining my interests, skill-set and approach.

Not sure a typical day exists, no two days are the same and that’s just how I like it! There is always a lot on - mix of supporting, mobilising and connecting with people and always the challenging of balancing inside the building and outside the museum work.

My work and career has always had an intersection between something creative and something broadly around delivering social policy outcomes – e.g. heritage and participation; the built environment and community-led regeneration; artistic learning, and of course more recently, the visual arts and wellbeing.

One day I will be setting out chairs and making tea in a hospital for a singing for breathing group, the next I’ll be at an NHS research committee approving a physio dance project, then I’ll be at Soho House meeting a potential donor for lunch. Then back to the chairs again.

I have been doing this (May Project Gardens) for 12 years and I'm always inspired by the transformative nature of the work we do with people and organisations.

"Through the making of Instrumental Health, I interviewed so many inspiring people. It really was a massively important experience for me personally as I learnt more about myself and the mental health issues I’ve struggled with in silence for so many years." Pete's new film on anxiety (December 2020) is available here.

" My PhD is about using archaeology as a form of therapy for people who are living with trauma — I’ve seen first-hand how useful and life-changing it can be, and I can’t imagine myself doing anything else."

"...the life blood of what we do--the arts that we bring to Barts Health--propels me to visit artists’ studio as well as meetings with potential cultural partners. Vital Art tends to work on more than 20 projects at a time, so each day yields a

"I’ve always had an interest in how music can inspire, encourage, console and restore people."

" My fellow Storyteller and I went into Manchester Children’s hospital to tell stories and were inspired by the courage of the children and dedication of the staff."

" Museums do a huge amount of work in health and wellbeing; it is largely about reflecting and telling stories which has an incredibly powerful effect on people."

" I have been working as a Biodanza Teacher since 2011. Most of the work I do with people who are elderly or have disabilities and / or medical conditions."

"It can be an amazing learning experience from so many perspectives."

“I saw no platform for young people with direct and indirect experience for mental illness, so I created one.”