Mapping of Initiatives on Culture, Health and Well-being

FRESH project was developed during the Street Art Fest Grenoble and was organized by the Space Junk Art Center with the mission to create street art murals in the hospital environment. The objective was to offer to the hospital space artistic content through murals and to promote the artistic practices within the hospital. A mediation component accompanied this project aimed at the general public, patients, visitors, health professionals and students, in order to make street art better known, with: artistic practical sessions in the hospital wards; meetings with the artists during the creative process; visits and a conference.

This temporary exhibition is part of the cultural program of the Museum of Medical Sciences from Grenoble, and traces the evolution of surgical practice in Grenoble hospital. Since 1992, the year of its creation, the museum began its action of conservation and valorisation of the medical and hospital heritage, in partnership with the CHU of Grenoble and with the support of the general council of Isère. As the main activity of the museum, the exhibitions gives concrete expression of the cultural dimension and the dissemination to the public of its missions of census, collection, and preservation of the medical heritage, and of the collective memory, often neglected or forgotten. These exhibitions, strongly rooted in local history, are based on the testimonies of the hospital's active and retired staff, and are built around the collections of various items gathered by the museum since its creation. At a time when the Grenoble University Hospital is inaugurating the new interventional platform, this exhibition, through objects, books and iconographic documents, makes it possible to measure the progress made and to appreciate the improvement in the conditions of care.

The art library carries out numerous actions around the works and artists of its collection for the health communities of the various care establishments available in the region:
1. At the Cadillac Hospital Center: in order to meet the objectives of raising the awareness of professionals and patients in the specialized hospital center, as well as the policy of opening up the establishment to the city, the art library exhibits two selections of 15 works in the establishment each year in a two-month cycle. Groups of patients from the Cadillac Center also come to the art library for selections of works and visits to exhibitions. From October 2021 to January 2022, the art library proposed to patients and caregivers to design an exhibition of 30 artworks from its collection, to be presented over the sites of Lormont and Cadillac. This exhibition was accompanied by educational booklets, workshops for patients and a meeting which was an opportunity for artists to present their films to other artists, patients and staff.
2. At the Regional Hospital Center of Bordeaux, Haut-Lévêque and Pellegrin sites: in partnership with the communication department of the University Hospital and the various teams of the Haut-Lévêque and Pellegrin sites, the art library brings together the nursing staff into sessions of artworks selections that are exhibited throughout the year in several departments: radiotherapy, hepato-biliary surgery, oncology, orthogenics. Booklets are made available in the departments to discover the artworks of the exhibitions. For children, booklets accompanying the artworks are specifically designed for each new exhibition (specific space at the reception).

This educational and cultural project was offered to a dozen between nine and twelve years old, from the Specialized Educational Service and Home Care (Sessad). Although they had different disabilities (learning disorders, learning disabilities, intellectual disabilities, autism), these children had the necessary resources to share the experience. They have become spectators, directors and programmers in the framework of the "Résistances" festival held in Foix. Whether behind the camera, on the camera, or on the big screen, all were able to express their opinions as well as their emotions. Initially, the children came into the role of programmers by choosing collectively the short films that would make up one of the "young audience" sessions of the festival. During the workshops, the children watched the short films in the conditions of a classic cinema session. At the end of these screenings, the children were able to express themselves: what did they understand, feel, preferred. Secondly, the children participated in co-creation workshops and the objective was to to make a short documentary film. They had to discover everything: the equipment (the camera, the sound boom), the visual components (the frame, the angle of the shot, movement) and sound (speech, sound effects).

In May 2017, six actors, video artists, authors and directors of the Parisian company Ici Même, involved the Blue-Cross care residency of Capdenac-Gare, took up an artistic challenge. For two weeks, the residents have participated in the co-creation of a video-guide, mixing fiction and anecdotes, to discover the little-known places of the establishment. The scenario was inspired of the Peter Pan syndrome that is the young refusal to grow up, to be trapped in the childhood, which was enriched by the feelings and anecdotes given by the seniors. The establishment opened its doors to the general public to take part in this playful visit.

L'échappée des rêves is a multidisciplinary artistic project that collects dreams, and presents them in the form of theatrical, choreographic, musical or visual performances. For the past three years, the artists of the Compagnie du Rêvoir have been collecting dream stories from patients in the Pneumology-Allergology Department of the Larrey Hospital, and then using this material to create escapes from the bedtime and present them into the original theatrical performances to the general public, combining words, music and dance.

A trip to Autistan is a musical and theatrical show performed by young people with psychological or autistic disorders within the frame of the care home, the Therapeutic Farm of Escala. They welcome young people aged 12 to 18 who suffer from more or less important psychological disorders. In the performance, the youngsters point out the difficulties of their health problems, but also the universal character of these difficulties in adolescence: communication, sharing, meeting, speaking, love, etc. The young people who participate in this project have various backgrounds, some of them were beneficiaries of social services, they lived in care homes, in order to promote the mix and the true integration of young people in difficulty. They are all supervised by artistic professionals and by professionals of Care, Education and Social Work.

APF Handicap France was organizing in 2018 an exhibition part of their Beauty and Handicap project on the invisible people with disabilities in order to raise awareness for the general public on this issue and the unseen difficulties. Multiple sclerosis, genetic diseases, hyperactivity or anorexia are some of these so-called invisible diseases highlighted by these photos. The exhibition is part of a series of yearly exhibitions organized by the organisation on different themes at the intersection between arts and health. More than 10 different exhibitions have been done in France since 2009.

This is a national program created in 1999 and developed in Occitanie within the framework of a partnership agreement "Culture santé handicap et dépendance" between the Agence Régionale de Santé (ARS) and the Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles (DRAC). Its objective is to encourage health and medico-social establishments to develop a cultural policy, thanks to the implementation of two annual calls for projects: 1) health culture for health establishments; 2) cultural activities for disability and dependency implemented in medico-social establishments. This programme is concretized by a partnership signed between a cultural structure and a health establishment or a medico-social structure of Occitanie with public status, private health establishment of collective interest (ESPIC) or association. Social establishments and private establishments are eligible only if they are associated with a main establishment, itself eligible, which will be the project leader. By responding to the annual call for projects, the establishment can obtain a maximum of 60% of the total amount of the project that it will be able to develop for the benefit of patients or residents, their families, visitors and staff of the establishments.

For more than 20 years, the Ministry of Solidarity and Health and the Ministry of Culture have pursued a joint policy of access to culture for all audiences in hospitals. In 2010, the Ministry of Health and Sports and the Ministry of Culture and Communication signed a new "Culture and Health" agreement. After a period of experimentation in four regions, the aim of the "Culture and Health" scheme is to take into account the medico-social sector. The aim is to promote all actions oriented towards of the "Culture and Health" theme, which helps to bring culture "close" to the fellow citizens: everywhere, in all territories, and also to develop the sharing of experiences between the players. The target audience includes the entire health community: hospitalized people, elderly people, families, health and medical-social professionals.
In the regions, the interministerial partnership is implemented through agreements signed between the Regional Directorates of Cultural Affairs (DRAC) and the Regional Health Agencies (ARS). Many hospitals have included cultural policies of excellence in their contracts of objectives and resources.