Mapping of Initiatives on Culture, Health and Well-being

The Grounding retreat program was born from the need to support, empower, and connect female activists, and artists who work with the community. They have organized two editions of the program. The first was held in Kelebia, a village near Subotica, and the second (2024.) regional meeting included women from Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Greece, and Hungary and it was held in Utrine.

Darba Waħda… is an intergenerational project led by Anna Formosa that took place between 2015 and 2019 during which children and older people were given a safe space to share and learn from each other through creative methods including drama, games and exercises, arts and crafts, storytelling, improvisations etc. By means of the carefully structured workshops and involvement of professional artists, participants unleashed their creativity, built friendships and developed new skills together. Darba waħda… was about using creativity to harness the strengths, potentials and achievements of elderly people, and the joy and youthfulness of children to provide a line of communication that transcends the generational divide. There were 18 projects of 10 weekly sessions each, spread around Malta and Gozo over the years, the last one being a special edition. This was followed by another 3 projects in schools supported by the National Literacy Agency..

FilHERmonia is an annual series of events that represents another chapter in the Philharmonic's history, dedicated to themes related to women, art, and health. For years, October has been globally recognised as Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and FilHERmonia focuses not only on medical aspects but also on this topic's psychological, social, and cultural dimensions.
Women representing various fields of art and science, such as artists, musicians, conductors, composers, managers, and music lovers, have always been part of the Philharmonic. The entire month is devoted to caring for the body, skin, spirit, and mind while simultaneously creating an atmosphere of sisterhood. We believe that constant development, which requires moments of pause, finding harmony, and self-care, is a critical element of life.
FilHERmonia is an initiative created by women, about women, and for women. It combines art and science and emphasises the symbiosis of spirit and body. We focus not only on breast cancer prevention but also on mental health, both in everyday life and during illness. During each event, we emphasise both the history of predecessors and the present while also looking to the future.
As part of the FilHERmonia series, concerts are organised, led by outstanding female musicians under the baton of renowned conductors and dedicated to magnificent female composers. In addition, each edition offers lectures, workshops, film screenings, exhibitions, and promotion of preventive examinations. These events are an integral part of the Philharmonic's seasonal program while aligning with the global "Pink October" initiative. FilHERmonia is not just a series of artistic events but also a platform promoting health and balance for all women and their surroundings.

The Mental Power Prague Film Festival is an international film festival featuring actors (non-actors) with mental and combined disabilities.
With its 17-year history, the festival serves as an inspirational meeting place for artists and audiences. Since its inception, the festival has become a significant platform where individuals with mental disabilities can showcase their works and share their stories with the world.

Living Museum Madrid is part of the original movement created by psychologist and artist Janos Marton and artist Bolek Greczynski in the early 1980s in New York. The Living Museum project established a space dedicated to art on the campus of Creedmoor Psychiatric Hospital. Today, the Living Museum movement is present in more than 20 countries, including some in the USA, Switzerland, Korea, Georgia, the Netherlands and Germany.
Living Museum is presented as a space for artistic work that promotes the creative and professional development of people with mental disorders and/or disabilities and with an interest in artistic creation. Its main focus is art, promoting the development of personal artistic projects as a support for the empowerment, inclusion and recovery of people with mental health problems, and eliminating the stigma that the label of mental disorder and/or disability represents in our society.
The artistic workshops are based on the Open Studio methodology and are characterised as open, safe and stress-free artistic spaces, adapted to the individual needs and rhythms of each artist. Living Museum seeks to provide an environment where artists feel professionally recognised, and where their work and creative experimentation is valued.
Living Museum Madrid is also a space for socialisation through art, where dialogue and the exchange of artistic experiences is encouraged, where life narratives are generated and the creation of support networks is promoted through art.
From October 2023 to June 2024, Living Museum Madrid has carried out the First Artistic Residencies with the participation of 15 artists. These residencies have taken place at the Centro de Cultura Contemporánea Condeduque in Madrid, ending with the group exhibition El Despliegue de la Pausa (The Deployment of the Pause). This creative space will continue next year, extending the residencies to a total of 20 artists.
Living Museum Madrid is currently focused on establishing alliances with other artistic entities of a similar nature, and among its main objectives is to achieve a permanent location and stable funding that will allow for its growth and continuity in its work of inclusion and empowerment through art.

Through the creative coworking Lab-CREARTE the organizers are developing in an interdisciplinary way integrative projects and initiatives for the Recognition of Heritage Values in its three fundamental aspects: the human, the natural and the cultural, providing new meanings and promoting innovation as axes of Sustainable Development in Rural Ecosystems in line with the SDGs, the Green Deal and the New European Bauhaus (NEB). With the SEEDS OF THE BIOSPHERE initiative, they begin a path of shared reflection and creation of projects and initiatives in cooperation with independent professionals related to the areas of activity that they are developing.
Starting from the CREARTE workshops, in 2018 they began a journey of recognition of people's values and talents as a common thread for educational, socioeconomic and territorial integration projections. “EnTre2 Plan” for Safeguarding and Innovation of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Popular Embroidery of the Sierra de Francia of Salamanca, as a common thread for educational, socioeconomic and territorial integration projections.
From there they continue to investigate and discover, through the SEMILLAS DE LA BIOSFERA initiative and the lines of action ARTESA, ALDABA and TALLERES DE OFICIO, new lines of IMMERSION, TRANSMISSION and CULTURAL INNOVATION.
In relation to Natural Heritage through the CO-CREATORS line of action and the SAVIA and SALUDARTE programs they investigate and design pilot experiences and methodological, participatory and collaborative models of awareness and ecocultural immersion through workshops, Art Itineraries in Nature and artistic interpretation processes based on biological structures, ecosystems and landscapes, inviting us to explore new visions. and integrative aesthetics of nature for the benefit of the community and the CRAFTS, NEW CULTURAL INDUSTRIES and ECOTOURISM sectors.

The "I Hear Good Sounds" (Słyszę Dobre Dźwięki [SDD]) campaign primarily educates about the dangers of noise pollution but also inspires to create spaces of silence, relaxation, and good sounds. At the very beginning, it informed the citizens about how to create an acoustically friendly environment and how to navigate in a world filled with sounds. We educated the province's inhabitants about the ecology of sounds through conferences, workshops, outdoor activities, banner campaigns, hearing tests, and contests for School and City Harmony Zones. Later, the organizers began to consider good sounds more broadly – in the context of inclusive culture. They decided they should be accessible to everyone, regardless of age, place of residence, or health condition. And so the idea of an annual summary of the campaign and a festival of inclusive culture was born: the "I Hear Good Sounds" Festival, a festival for families, seniors, and youth, where are invited outstanding artists to create a community of good sounds.
The campaign stands out not only through its educational activities (targeted at age-diverse groups of recipients - from children and youth to seniors) but also thanks to its innovativeness and non-standard actions. The initiative goes beyond traditional educational methods (especially those proposed by musical institutions) through, among others, education about hearing, organising free hearing tests, supporting the creation of School Harmony Zones in schools, and a festival addressing therapeutic aspects of sound and psychophysical well-being, as well as the role of music in shaping it. This places the entire campaign as a pioneer in making communities aware of the importance of hearing health and the impact of surrounding sounds on our well-being.
Organising events as part of the I Hear Good Sounds Campaign changes the social approach to noise and health issues while also serving as an example of a modern approach to health education.

This online platform includes projects and programs developed by institutions, companies and associations in the world of culture that use art as a tool for social participation. It originates from the Art and Participation program that the Picasso Museum Málaga has been developing since 2004, the purpose of which is to promote effective integration and real accessibility to art and culture for everyone.
Since 2004, the Picasso Museum Málaga has developed an art and social participation program aimed at groups with functional diversity and/or at risk of social exclusion whose purpose is to promote effective integration and real accessibility to art and culture for all.
Furthermore, in these years, participatory and long-term projects have been launched with the main objective of developing actions in the participants' socio-emotional and cognitive skills through a periodic and prolonged relationship with the visual arts, enhancing the creation of community.
After the analysis of the results obtained in these years, it is corroborated that during the development of these projects, the participants acquired skills that favor their empowerment and facilitate the processes of social participation. Given these positive results, the Department of Educational and Cultural Activities of the Picasso Museum Málaga carries out a continuous process of research into the strategies developed in our country, to understand and evaluate how and to what extent the development of these skills occurs.
It is in this context that this online platform is inserted, which arises from the compilation and analysis of initiatives that use art and creativity as a tool for social participation and which proposes to be a reference place for consultations and research related to the social, art, education or health fields, among others.

This initiative is dedicated to the hearing-impaired audience, in order to facilitate their communication and remove any technical obstacles to accessing culture and art. One way of meeting the needs of those who are deaf or hard of hearing was to translate songs from the “Ślask” repertoire into sign language. The next step was to tailor the current artistic and educational offer for those who are hard of hearing but do not use sign language. There will be more inclusive events, as well as a staff training programme to enhance their knowledge and competence regarding the above disabilities.

ΕΜΣΤ participates with two art psychotherapy groups for mental health patients in the pilot action SUB.2.1 “Cultural Prescription as Supplementary Treatment in Mental Health” of the Ministry of Culture.
The Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Health signed in September 2021 a Memorandum of Cooperation for the design and implementation of an innovative Cultural Prescription program. With this program, initiatives are adopted that include the arts and culture in preventive and therapeutic treatment to promote the mental health and well-being of citizens, recognizing the beneficial role of contemporary artistic creation in the health and well-being of individuals.
The implementation of the Cultural Prescription program presupposes the conduct of a research project for the design, implementation and evaluation of the individual actions within the framework of the overall program, in order to achieve the best result. Additionally, the research team will develop appropriate tools for monitoring and evaluating the action framework. To this end, the contracting parties cooperate in a mutually complementary manner for the implementation of the program within the framework of the common public purpose of the creation, planning and implementation of the Cultural Prescription program.
The object of this action is the derivation of a Research Project aiming to create the organizational framework for the inclusion of Cultural Prescription as a complementary treatment for people facing mental health problems or psychological problems from chronic diseases, the design and pilot implementation of the program, the study on the effects of patient contact with art and culture, the process and ways of participation of patients and cultural institutions, and the supervision and evaluation of the program in order to improve it. It will also develop the appropriate tools so that the action can be integrated into the electronic platform of immaterial prescription of IDIKA S.A.