Nine professorships of HKU, Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Fontys Academies and HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht join their efforts with Utrecht University and UMC Utrecht. Their mission is to create new visions for getting to a new art-based approach to healthcare. They are supported in this by a SIA-SPRONG fund. Through their transdisciplinary approach, this research group is developing new work methods, practices and scenarios for the healthcare and wellbeing sectors. Not for each other, but with each other.
This is happening in medical hospitals and cultural community centres, both in long-term care for people with disabilities, and for juveniles with mental health issues. Simultaneously, the arts and creative sectors, along with the educational institutes, are working on increased awareness of healthcare and new ways for individuals to behave more sustainably, be more caring, and more inclusive.
“The arts help us in posing questions about quality, life and experience. Together we can thereby create wellbeing and health in a context of sustainability” - Ella van Lingen, director of Reinaerde
Towards humane and experience-focused healthcare
Creating Cultures of Care wants to make a positive contribution to the transformation of healthcare and wellbeing, by working together, as an open expertise network, on new practices and concepts of care. The Corona crisis, increasing health inequality and unequal opportunities are all signs that proper healthcare is not evident, and that taking care of each other is increasingly important. Not the healthcare system itself, but the experiences of residents, citizens and clients should be at the centre, while the idea of health versus sickness must be more broadly defined.Achieving this, demands new practices, strategies and methodologies. Artistic co-creative processes, characterised by a multisensory, heavily imaginative and opportunities-based approach, can play a crucial role in this. They can create room for the sharing of new ideas, sentiments and perspectives, to get towards a new perspective that is based on shared values and human connection. The involved art professorships, individual artists and professional partners have each gathered valuable knowledge over the last decades about the design of experience-based co-creative processes, about finding meaning and purpose, and about new perspectives (reframing)