Arts in Health, also known as Arts for Health, is an umbrella term used to describe the domain of using the arts to enhance our (mental) health and well-being. It involves a heterogeneous range of professionals who use the arts in various ways, with different goals and outcomes. The practices of these professionals can be placed on a continuum based on the variety of goals and outcomes, ranging from promoting social connection or well-being to treating (mental) health conditions. Recent discussions in the Netherlands have raised questions about the position of creative arts therapists on this continuum. This opinion paper addresses this issue by providing a brief overview of the development of the profession of creative arts therapists, the working areas of creative arts therapists and the growing evidence base of creative arts therapeutic interventions. The practices of creative arts therapists are positioned on the continuum, where the emphasis on and accountability for the clients’ (mental) health increases and evidence-informed use of the arts within a more clearly delineated and legally safeguarded professional framework are present. Knowing where the practices of creative arts therapists are placed can assist in identifying when to choose creative arts therapists, other professionals combining arts and healthcare, or a combination of professionals.
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In this paper, we explore the ways in which we can employ arts-based research methods to unpack and represent the diversity and complexity of journalistic experiences and (self) conceptualisations. We address the need to reconsider the ways in which we theorise and research the field of journalism. We thereby aim to complement the current methodologies, theories, and prisms through which we consider our object of study to depict more comprehensively the diversity of practices in the field. To gather stories about journalism creatively (and ultimately more inclusively and richly), we propose and present the use of arts-based research methods in journalism studies. By employing visual and narrative artistic forms as a research tool, we make room for the senses, emotion and imagination on the part of the respondents, researchers and audiences of the output. We draw on a specific collaboration with artists and journalists that resulted in a research event in which 32 journalists were invited to collaboratively recreate the “richness and complexity” of journalistic practices.
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In today’s technological world, human intertwinement with the rest of nature hasbeen severely diminished. In our digital culture, many people hardly have any direct experience of and sense of connection with “the real” of the natural world. The author assumes that when we want to find ways to mend this gap, arts-based environmental education (AEE) can play a meaningful role. In AEE, artmaking is regarded as itself a way of potentially gaining new understandings about our natural environment. As a reflective practitioner, the author facilitated three different AEE activities, at several times and at diverse locations. On basis of his observations, memories, written notes, audio-visual recordings and interviews with participants, teachers and informed outsiders, he interpreted the experiences both of participants and himself. To this end he employed interpretative phenomenological analysis paired with autoethnography.The artmaking activities researched here aimed to bring about a shift in focus. Participants were encouraged to approach natural phenomena not head-on, but in an indirect way. Moreover, the artmaking process aspired to heighten their awareness to the presence of their embodied self at a certain place. The research questions that the author poses in this study are: (1) What is distinctive in the process of the AEE activities that I facilitate?; (2) Which specific competencies can be identified for a facilitator of AEE activities?; and (3) Does participating in the AEE activities that I facilitate enhance the ability of participants to have a direct experience of feeling connected to the natural world?In this explorative study, the author identifies facilitated estrangement through participating in AEE as an important catalyst when aiming to evoke such instances of transformative learning. In undergoing such moments, participants grope their way in a new liminal space. Artmaking can create favorable conditions for this to happen through its defamiliarizing effect which takes participants away from merely acting according to habit (on “autopilot”). The open-ended structure of the artmaking activities contributed to the creation of a learning arena in which emergent properties could become manifest. Thus, participants could potentially experience a sense of wonder and begin to acquire new understandings – a form of knowing that the author calls “rudimentary cognition.” The research further suggests that a facilitator should be able to bear witness to and hold the space for whatever enfolds in this encounter with artistic process in AEE. He or she must walk the tightrope between control and non-interfering.The analysis of the impacts of the AEE activities that were facilitated leads the author to conclude that it is doubtful whether these in and of themselves caused participants to experience the natural environment in demonstrable new and deep ways. He asserts that most of their awareness was focused on the internal level of their own embodied presence; engagement with place, the location where the AEE activity was performed, seemed secondary. The findings show that AEE activities first and foremost help bring about the ignition and augmentation of the participants’ fascination and curiosity, centered in an increased awareness of their own body and its interactions with the natural world. The present study can be seen as a contribution to efforts of envisaging innovative forms of sustainable education that challenge the way we have distanced ourselves from the more-than-human world.
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De druk op dansers is enorm. Lange en intensieve werkdagen, veel reizen en verschillende werkplekken maken het lastig om lichaam en geest goed te verzorgen. Hierdoor liggen blessures en mentale klachten op de loer. In het RAAK project Fit to Perform hebben Het Nationale Ballet (HNB), Scapino Ballet Rotterdam en Codarts de krachten gebundeld om de fysieke en mentale gezondheid van dansers te verbeteren en prestaties te optimaliseren. Het project is gestart in april 2016 en heeft inmiddels de volgende resultaten opgeleverd: 1. De Performing artist and Athlete Health Monitor (PAHM) is ontwikkeld. Dit is een online tool dat real-time informatie over de fysieke en mentale gezondheid van podiumkunstenaars verzamelt, analyseert en visualiseert. Via een persoonlijk dashboard koppelt het systeem de uitkomsten van de fysieke testen en de maandelijkse gezondheidsvragenlijst terug aan de studenten (Codarts) en dansers (Het Nationale Ballet en Scapino Ballet Rotterdam). 2. Binnen Codarts wordt de kennis uit PAHM gebruikt voor a) vernieuwing van het onderwijscurriculum, b) evidence based onderbouwing voor het handelen van het Performing Arts Health Team, c) individuele begeleiding van de studenten op het gebied van fysieke en mentale gezondheid door een health coach, d) het ontwikkelen van een traject rondom Periodisering Op Maat (POM). 3. Vier publicaties in internationale wetenschappelijke tijdschriften en diverse presentaties op (inter)nationale congressen. 4. Borging en uitbreiding van het consortium voor 8 jaar door honorering van een SPRONG subsidie resulterend in de oprichting van PEARL (PErforming artist and Athlete Research Lab). Gedurende het RAAK project zijn is er zowel vanuit het onderwijs (Codarts), het praktijkveld (Het Nationale Ballet) als de wetenschappelijke wereld (congresorganisaties) de vraag gesteld aan de projectgroep om de beschikbare gegevens verder te analyseren. Doel van deze top-up aanvraag is het vergroten van de impact van het Fit to Perform project door het verbeteren van de doorwerking van de resultaten richting: 1. Onderwijs: De 4 internationale publicaties worden omgezet naar begrijpelijke factsheets/ infographics. 2. Onderzoek: Er worden secundaire analyses uitgevoegd op de Fit to perform database om inzicht te krijgen welke vragenlijsten door onderzoekers gebruikt moeten worden in projecten om inzicht te krijgen in de omvang, aard, risicofactoren en preventieve maatregelen van fysieke en mentale klachten bij dansers. De uitkomsten worden gepubliceerd in een internationaal tijdschrift en weergegeven in een toegankelijker factsheet/infographic. 3. Praktijk: Er worden secundaire analyses uitgevoerd op de Fit to Perform database om inzicht te krijgen in welke kenmerken van dansers (leeftijd, aantal jaren danservaring, vooropleiding, rang in het gezelschap etc) van invloed kunnen zijn op het grootste blessurerisico. Deze blessureprofielen worden via een presentatie teruggekoppeld aan Het Nationale Ballet.
