Mapping of Initiatives on Culture, Health and Well-being

The pilot project Art and Handicrafts in Emmaboda (KoHiE) was carried out as part of the three-year program Health and Culture in the Kalmar county. KoHiE aimed to investigate whether cultural initiatives in the form of study circles have an effect on perceived health and rehabilitation in people with mental illness. The hypothesis was that participation in cultural activities is a form of rehabilitation that facilitates recovery and thereby promotes the health of the participants. Two circles, one based on art activities, the other on felting, were carried out during the autumn of 2015 until May 2016. Each circle lasted for 10 weeks with two hits a week of three hours/hit and was led by an artist and a wool craftsman.

The project Culture in Close Care is a collaboration between healthcare, academia and culture, digital cultural experiences, including opera performances from The Metropolitan Opera (Met), that is made available to patients and relatives in care homes. The purpose of the project Culture in Close Care is to investigate whether digital cultural access is important for well-being and existential health for people who receive home care. The project also investigates how new models for play services such as the Met Opera on Demand can be made available to people in health and care; to inspire content producers to include the target group of the sick, the elderly, people with functional variations and relatives in their screen and VR productions; and to be able to meet a variety of personal interests in health and care.

The project give people on sick leave the opportunity to strengthen their health and break their social isolation through culture. Just recently, a group, consisting of members from Mullsjö and Habo municipalities, had a writing cabin and dancing in Mullsjö swimming hall's premises. The participants have tried theater, crafts such as weaving, silversmithing and ceramics. The group participates in KUR, culturally supported rehabilitation, which Region Jönköping County offers in collaboration with municipalities in the county.

Research shows that cultural experiences can actively contribute to health and faster rehabilitation. Participating in or experiencing cultural activities stimulates the senses, can contribute to well-being and a sense of context and meaning. KUR is carried out in groups together with professional cultural actors with experience of working with people. The rehabilitation lasts for ten weeks with two activities per week and ends with a reunion about three weeks after the completion of rehabilitation. Examples of cultural activities are self-creation, such as painting, felting and other cultural activities such as choir singing, dancing and movement. The group also takes part in cultural experiences such as concerts, theater performances and art exhibitions."

The project Culture on Prescription has been implemented in the Jönköping County Region with the aim of reducing ill health and increasing the return to work of people with easy to moderate mental illness and non-specific pain. Culture on prescription means that groups participate in various cultural activities, based on the referral received from specialists.

Art can activate mind, body and commitment, which is why the Arts and Mental Health Association established the Centre for Arts and Mental Health. In a collaboration between health professionals, professional artists and psychiatric users, storytelling workshops are developed and run with a focus on storytelling as a free space on the road to recovery.
The art-based platform Our Storytelling Centre, to be established under the auspices of the Centre for Arts and Mental Health, is aimed at adults with mental illness who participate in storytelling workshop groups during or after their treatment services in psychiatry and is thus a bridging effort in the transition between treatment and civilian life. In the workshops, the participants can experience a free space and that the group format allows for a social reorganization around the common artistic work.
The project should be seen as a post-hospital effort that bridges the gap between hospital and civil society and at the same time by qualifying psychiatric users as workshop leaders can also become a peer effort. In addition, with the involvement of volunteers and open events, the project build bridges to the surrounding community, just as radio podcasts and videos are becoming available online to a national audience.

Art and Health is one of Art promotion Scania's long-term projects, which has been ongoing since 2004 with support from Region Skåne. The project strives to give new impressions and give rise to conversations and discussion through art. The idea is to provide inspiration for more cultural experiences outside the project, create opportunities for meaningful activities and shared experiences for staff and care participants from elderly care. Art experiences give people more ways to communicate. In Art and Health, artists work with their art, in the way that suits all participants best, in order to carry out as good projects with their process to be characterized by flexibility both for the art, but also for the participants.

Direct interventions, research activities and training in music therapy for patients in adult and pediatric oncology, eating disorders and adolescent depression, intensive and pain therapy.

Music in the Houses | Abruzzo began its activity in 2015, as the main expression of the ARIA Cultural Association (Amici Riuniti In Arte). The idea of ​​smiling sociability among people who kindly open their homes to musical appointments enriched by readings, presentations, screenings and anything else that may be useful and interesting for approaching the specific theme of each programme. It provides live chamber music & cultural texts to socialize and to encourage own musical practice and create a culture that generates the best civic sense: that of sharing, deepening, cordiality.

Psychoanalysis + is an international, interdisciplinary initiative founded, developed and directed by Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist and psychosocial theorist Dr Noreen Giffney, who is also a lecturer and a researcher at Ulster University in Belfast in Northern Ireland. Founded in 2013, Psychoanalysis foregrounds psychoanalysis as a clinical practice and a theoretical tool for tracing the unconscious dynamics underpinning occurrences in cultural, societal and political contexts. It also takes psychoanalysis itself as an object to be wondered about and questioned. It has a commitment to psychosocial and psychocultural work, and seeks to serve a bridging function between the clinic, the academic institution, and the arts and cultural sphere. Psychoanalysis + brings together individuals interested in clinical, theoretical and artistic approaches to, and applications of, psychoanalysis.
Psychoanalysis + points to the collaborative and interdisciplinary nature of projects, publications and events forming part of the initiative. Psychoanalysis exists in an interdependent and mutually enriching relationship with the cultures and societies. The ‘+’ in the title gestures towards the fact that psychoanalysis is always more than itself. In other words, psychoanalytic practitioners have always drawn on and incorporated insights from other clinical and non-clinical fields into the work, for example, literature, psychiatry, music, neuroscience, art, psychology, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, nursing, classics, social work, film, theatre and so on. Psychoanalysis is thus always, can only be, interdisciplinary. The space between ‘psychoanalysis’ and ‘+’ also recognises the gap needed for productive things to happen which cannot be known in advance. The ‘+’ also symbolises an openness to new possibilities and collaborations. The aim is to create a space where clinicians, artists and curators, academics and anyone interested in psychoanalysis can come together to have an experience together and to talk and reflect on that experience.