Rural community

Kunstloc Brabant has begun to form a community around art and health. This is one of the outcomes of the plan to organise a meeting in 2020 about the question "What would a national network on art and health look like? Art is Healthy can mean and should do according to the people who work at the intersection of art, culture, care and welfare?"

Due to the restrictions surrounding the corona crisis, a number of discussions on this subject took place rather than a meeting. The following conclusions were drawn:

• Look for more links with the care sector and connect to care and welfare networks, existing agendas and urgent themes. - Show good examples.
• Organise work placements in each other's fields of work and bring training in welfare, care, art and culture together.
• Work with Machteld Huber's Positive Health model.
• Give shape to reciprocity in the relationship between art and care: artists learn from working systematically in the care sector and care professionals learn to look at a care question differently.
• Work on sustainability by involving the entire healthcare organization in the results of a project and set up an innovation fund: provincial or national, trans-domain.

As a contribution to the formation of a community Kunstloc Brabant has started a bimonthly newsletter. A 'real' meeting is planned for this year. "To learn from each other and to see how we can break down the barriers between art, culture and care in the future." Anyone who wants to join can contact Art location Brabant, for Gelderland with Culture Eastand for the other Dutch provinces please contact LKCA (National Knowledge Institute for Cultural Education and Amateur Art).

Art in Healthcare

One initiative in which care and art are already working together is 'Art in Care'. It is a research team consisting of researchers from Amsterdam UMC (Department of Ethics, Law and Humanities) and Leyden Academy on Vitality and Ageing. An artist helps to find suitable methods to capture the artistic impact. A group of elderly people is also involved in the research process. The research focuses on the value of art in long-term care by describing existing art initiatives and evaluating the impact with the ultimate goal of making them useful for a wider audience and contributing to the quality of life of the elderly.

More information

Care art

Visual artist Hein Walter has been active as a care artist for many years. Read also the artist column Care art which he published in January 2015 in BK Information.