Mapping of Initiatives on Culture, Health and Well-being

For the last 15 years Ex Cathedra a charity about singing, through its pioneering Singing Medicine projects bring wellbeing through singing to children and adults, both in hospital and at home. These projects helped combat isolation, as well as supporting the improvement of the mental health and well-being of hospitalized children, but once the pandemic ensued the usual weekly visits stopped. In an extraordinary piece of timing, UK leading choir Ex Cathedra was working with Singing Medicine patients and Birmingham Children’s Hospital Chaplaincy team before anyone had heard of coronavirus, to create what is thought to be the world’s first hospital-wide children and young people’s virtual patient choir, called the Lifting Spirits Choir. They are making interactive singing-play films for children and young people, over 130 Singing Medicine interactive films are available, free to access on YouTube, for the patients, and for all young children and families everywhere.

#DanceAndWellBeing campaign initiated by European Dancehouse Network (EDN) and its members wants to reaffirm the essential role of dance in the societies and in maintaining the physical and mental well-being. With weekly online dance classes led by EDN members associated artists, they open the space to everyone, not just to professional dancers. Participation on dance classes via Zoom is free of charge and no prior dancing skills are required. Dance classes took place from November 2020 to February 2021.

In April 2021, a Covid-19 vaccine center was be set up at Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Rivoli, on the outskirts of Turin, Italy. Vaccinations was administered in the galleries of a Claudia Comte exhibition where visitors were ensconced in a specially-created audiovisual installation incorporating large-scale murals and a soothing sound work.

Since time immemorial, singing and making music have also been used for healing purposes. Music touches and connects - especially when it is created by singing together without any performance claims. The international non-profit network Singing Hospitals Association has set itself the goal of helping to shape a healthcare system in which the healing power of singing can be experienced and recognized by patients, therapists and representatives of the healthcare system as an approach to disease management and healthcare. For this purpose, the network offers a wealth of further training modules, which tailor singing offers to the special needs of patients and exploit the diverse potential of singing.

Sounds for the Soul is an unique offering for all that had a difficult period and implies a personal one-on-one musical encounter between the participant and a professional classical musician in the comfort of participants home. The musicians are firstly connect with participants by listening, and then he or she will choose and perform a piece of music just for participants. All this interaction happens while the participant is in the comfort of their homes, in Brussels. It is a reflection in music echoing your feelings of the moment, a way participants are looking to their challenges from a different angle. Cause everyone deserves a bit of kindness.
The artists are professional classical musicians playing a variety of instruments and coming from different cultural backgrounds. They usually perform on the bigger stages of Europe and are specially trained for the project to make sure the encounter will happen in the most empathic, pleasant and respectful way.

This Spring School wants to support professionals working in or with the cultural heritage sector in the development of outreach programs using heritage collections for well-being activities. The focus during the Spring School is on green spaces of care and community engagement. For five days the participants, depending on their level of experience, are going to be guided in developing an offering ranging for people with dementia to working with communities around mental health issues. The participants are coming into contact with a wide range of methods and instruments that already are been used by inspiring cases were cultural heritage collections are used for the improvement of the well-being of specific target groups.

Since 2010, CoRe has been the choir of people in the homes for the elderly of the Empolese-Valdelsa region, open to the participation of family members, volunteers, operators and all citizens, volunteers, operators and all citizens, in collaboration with local administrations and cultural institutions, which has, as a point of reference, the Chiarugi Foundation. The project aims to create sharing and aggregation, using music and theater as a means. Integration through art, in a context where the relationship is central, aims to give older people living in assisted living facilities a recognized social role.
It is an approach aimed at promoting the person, the development of their autonomy and awareness, the creation of paths of belonging to the territory understood as a continuity of citizens, through the proposal of social and cultural animation projects. Animating with elderly people living in sheltered structures means putting them in the perspective of a continuous presence, which makes daily intervention its strong point.
Chiarugi Foundation is convinced that the activity of the CoRe it still has a lot of potential: it is a powerful tool that allows elderly people welcomed in day care centers or sheltered housing, to participate in the social and cultural life of the territory, to tell their stories and be heard.

Sonoramente is proposed by Walter Vinci Onlus Association which works in the field of social fragility to support, promote and share a culture of prevention.
Sonoramente is a music therapy and choir singing project for people with Alzheimer and cognitive impairment and for their caregivers. In the course of four years of activity, the choir has involved around 40 choristers aged between 70 and 85 each year, with the participation of several young volunteers as supporting voices. Participation in the choir is, to date, completely free of charge for patients and their families. Over time, a real model of intervention has been developed, with a scientific coordinator and two music therapists, to replicate the format in other community contexts, both outside and inside RSA, and to promote a digital channel of intervention so as not to lose potential choristers unable to move.

Tomax Teatro deals with theatrical productions, video production and training. Theater courses in Bologna are divided according to age and individual experiences. For Tomax Teatro, the first objective is to convey the wonder of human exchange through art, by searching for one's roots, beyond social masks, origin, ethnicity and religion.
Tomax Teatro provides a free course of 3 months (12 meetings) for retired people. Through creative writing, the psychological and cognitive aspects of each individual participant are enhanced. Participants learn to “tell” their stories, to transform private life experiences into shared stories. They develop the ability to unravel the skein of confusing memories and to identify the highlights of each story and then translate them first into visual images and then into usable and shareable writing. Through the theater they go on to work on the body, on physicality and on sociality: the creation of the working group is an essential condition for being able to get involved without fear of judgment and to abandon the intimate dimension of writing and arrive at that of the theater.

Art Therapy (AT) can be defined as “a mental health profession utilizing the creative process of art making to help people solving conflicts and problems, developing interpersonal skills, reducing stress, and increasing self-awareness”. The creative process of art making can unveil subconscious information that can be then formally addressed by the art therapist. As such, AT is not primarily concerned with the aesthetic quality of client’s art products. The guided use of artistic expression aims to improve physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing by promoting individual’s sense of normalcy, competency and wellbeing, despite ongoing physical or psychological disabilities. Community-based AT initiatives have addressed stigma, promoted empowerment, aided social inclusion, and created arenas of safety for participants. Community engagement in the arts was specifically found to increase a sense of belonging, enabling participants to cultivate relationships, become more active, and connect to health relevant information.
Fresco Parkinson Institute plan to offer an art-based intervention for people burdened by Parkinson Diseases in form of a Community-Based Art Program. In this clinical population, the engagement in supervised, art-based activities may indeed serve as an effective adjunct to pharmacological therapies, to improve functional independence, psychological wellbeing and overall quality of life for both patients and their loved ones. The community program will be held in two Art Labs located in the cities of Florence and Vicenza, respectively. The labs will be open on weekdays and patients will be asked to schedule their appointment ahead in order to ensure the proper enforcement of social distancing measures and a smooth access to the art settings. Each daily session will include individual or group of 3-5 PD patients. Patients will be reached primarily through the local associations of patients on the territory. This initiative is intended to honor the fundamental Mission of the Fresco Parkinson Institute Foundation to improve the quality of life of people with Parkinson’s disease and their loved ones by bridging Art and Neuroscience.