2815 results
Case Studies (165 results)
Case Studies
Case Studies
These case studies showcase examples of diverse arts and health projects which are characterised by clear artistic vision, goals and outcomes, and are delivered by professional artists.
Case Studies
The Gift of Connection for Christmas by Mike Hanrahan & Westport Men’s Shed
When Irish Hospice Foundation and Irish Men’s Sheds invited musician Mike Hanrahan to join forces with Westport Men’s Shed, the brief was simple. Get everyone sharing favourite songs and talking about experiences of grief and loss. What resulted took everyone’s breath away. A creative collaboration that produced a gorgeous song ‘Wishing You Were Here’ for Christmas 2023 that’s still going strong.
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Compassionate Culture Networks Across Munster
Irish Hospice Foundation have been developing a Compassionate Culture Network across Ireland since 2021. These are spaces facilitated by artists for people to gently explore loss and how compassion connects through a variety of creative practices. Initially supported by Creative Ireland, additional support from Rethink Ireland’s Impact Fund for Munster enabled expansion across Munster in 2023.
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A Dive in Line – Art & Parkinson’s Disease
A Dive in Line showcases a yearlong exploratory project in West Cork between six individuals experiencing Parkinson’s disease / Parkinsonism, healthcare staff in Dunmanway Community Hospital and Day Care Centre, and participatory artist / speech & language therapist Áine Rose Connell. The project formed part of the Arts for Health Partnership Programme West Cork.
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Making My Mark
Making My Mark is a pilot art programme with renal dialysis patients at the BBraun Wellstone Wexford Renal Care Centre. Delivered by artist Kate Murphy, the programme ran from February to June 2024, and culminated in a public exhibition of patient artwork.
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The Vitruvian: Uncovering The Layers Of Cancer
Artist Vincent Devine, cancer researchers at UCD Conway Institute, and patient partners with a lived experience of cancer worked collaboratively to integrate art and science. From these conversations, Devine created a powerful visual representation that offers a glimpse into the journey of cancer, from its molecular origins to its profound effects on an individual’s wellbeing.
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DL. BRIDGE Inclusive Dance Club
Inclusive Dance Club is a creative dance project for children and young people with additional needs, exploring dance with a team of professional dance artists in a calm and safe environment. The project forms part of DL.BRIDGE, a Dance Limerick programme led by choreographer Katy Hewison.
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A Bright Light
A Bright Light was a collaborative book project with children of families who foster, about their experiences of having foster siblings. The project was a partnership between Kids’ Own Publishing Partnership and the Foster Care Resource Service Sligo, Leitrim, and West Cavan Area. Creative sessions with children and young people from families who foster took place in 2022 in Sligo.
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Storytelling through Weaving
The Storytelling through Weaving project was designed and delivered by wellbeing artist Lucy Hyland and participants from Headway in Cork, a support service for people affected by stroke and Acquired Brain Injury (ABI). Participants created individual weaves and the project culminated in a shared woven wall hanging as a visual account of their recovery from ABI and stroke.
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Artists in Residence in Service to People at End of Life
The arts and cultural engagement in all their forms help people of all ages explore and articulate loss, death, dying, and grief. Since Irish Hospice Foundation’s Arts and Cultural Engagement programme began in 2021, we’ve focused mainly on the bereaved and grieving. In 2023, we trialled an Artists in Residence in Service to People at End of Life project.
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Songlines
Songlines brought together artists and people living with dementia and cognitive impairment to discuss favourite poems and songs in four care settings in Waterford and Wexford. A series of workshops in 2023 drew out memories, and resulted in the creation of new work, which was performed by artists, residents, and staff at celebratory live performances as part of Festival in a Van.
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Creative Carers in West Cork
Creative Carers is a community-based strand of the Arts for Health Partnership Programme in West Cork, initiated in 2022. The programme creates access to engage with the arts for and with family carers, taking place at carers' homes, in arts spaces and in community settings across the region.
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Music Exploration Programme at Wexford Mental Health Association
Exploring the role of music in mental health recovery for individuals attending community mental health services and those in residential settings in County Wexford, the programme is funded as part of the Arts Ability Programme, a partnership with the HSE Mental Health Services and Wexford County Council Arts Department.
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Common Ground
Participatory artist and maker Ciara Harrison worked with a group of young people who access the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in Waterford. During the summer of 2022, they embroidered, painted, wrote, and explored many different craft and artistic mediums together.
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From the Birches to What’s the Story?
Visual artist Rozzi Kennedy began collaborating with older people in County Louth care settings in 2019 as part of a sequence of An Táin Arts Centre outreach projects. The projects were adapted throughout the Covid-19 pandemic with changing government guidelines, and further developed after restrictions lifted.
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Bridging the Imagination
Visual artist Sharon Dipity collaborated with a group of older people in Skibbereen Community Hospital in 2022 to explore task-based performance art around the theme of bridges, supported by an Arts Council Agility Award. The award afforded Sharon vital time for experimentation as part of sustaining creativity in long-term participatory practice.
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Reimagine UHL
Reimagine UHL, a project funded by the Irish Architecture Foundation Reimagine Programme, connected a design, architecture & engagement team led by Drake Hourigan Architects with the staff of University Hospital Limerick in 2022. The project explored the potential of the outdoor spaces of the hospital campus to offer support to staff in their working environment.
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Aoife’s Clown Doctors Spreading Smiles
Aoife’s Clown Doctors are based on the original Patch Adams, a doctor who found humour to be an integral part of children's wellbeing in hospital. Today our clown doctors are professional actors trained to work in healthcare settings, carrying out clown rounds in CHI Crumlin, CHI Temple Street and University Hospital Galway.
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I brought the dream of flying
I brought the dream of flying was an exhibition by artists Corina Duyn and Caroline Schofield which featured work created in response to Corina’s move into full-time nursing home care. Working together for 18 months, the artists developed a new methodology which enabled Corina to continue making art in the face of her increasing disability.
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Dance Bualadh Bos
Dance Bualadh Bos is a creative performance project, led by dance artists Ailish Claffey and Philippa Donnellan, and developed for and with older age communities in County Kildare. The project culminated in the creation of an original dance performance, presented privately to participants and to public audiences.
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Artist in Residence at the Mater Hospital
In 2019 Navin Hyder was invited to be the first artist-in-residence at the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, Dublin. Hyder’s interest in oncology, in particular cancer operations, led her to the hospital’s operating theatres. Over a two-year period, she developed a large body of work consisting mainly of drawings of live procedures.
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Young Music Graduates Introduction to Music in Healthcare Project
The Music in Healthcare Young Graduates project was developed by Music & Health Ireland, the leading Irish training organisation in the field. The project connects recently graduated musicians to training and mentorship, new skill sets, competences and professional best practice in the field of Arts & Health.
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Past Times Community Choir & Voices of Spring
Past Times and Voices of Spring are two large community choirs in Kildare welcoming older people, including those living with dementia and other age-related illnesses. The choirs are supported by Kildare County Council Arts Service and have been directed by Sharon Murphy and Sadhbh O’Sullivan since January 2015.
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Creative Movement Workshops in County Wexford Day Centres
Dance artist Vivian Brodie Hayes details the methods and learnings from delivering standalone creative movement workshops to older people across 11 day care centres in County Wexford, supported by Creative Ireland’s Age Friendly Programme and Wexford County Council Arts Department.
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Reels on Wheels
Reels on Wheels is an inclusive adaptive Irish céilí dance programme developed by and for wheelchair users in collaboration with Munster Academy of Dance, during a pilot feasibility project in Limerick. The programme now runs weekly in the Irish Wheelchair Association’s Dunraven Centre, Limerick.
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Brightly Burning Flame
In June 2022 composer Justin Grounds was invited by the Irish Doctors Orchestra to join them in a week of gathering and music making on Heir Island, Cork. A new recording and film of Justin's piece for
string orchestra ‘Brightly Burning Flame’ resulted from this collaboration.Case Studies
Yes, But Do You Care?
A transdisciplinary arts project exploring dementia family care-giving and Ireland’s new capacity legislation. Initiated and led by visual artist Marie Brett, working with dance artist and choreographer Philip Connaughton and members of the Dementia Carers Campaign Network.
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The Three Sisters
The Three Sisters is a group of connected artworks for the new Ormonde Wing of St Luke’s General Hospital in Kilkenny made by artist Diane McCormick and commissioned by the HSE through the Per Cent for Art Scheme.
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Skibbereen HSE Campus Choir
Since 2018, a free weekly drop-in choir has been hosted by musician Liz Clark on the Skibbereen Hospital Campus over lunch hour which is open to all staff.
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Storytelling Residency at University Hospital Waterford
Joe Brennan was Waterford Healing Arts Trust’s Artist in Residence for 2021 at University Hospital Waterford. The residency focused on staff engagement due to Covid restrictions, offering storytelling online and outdoors. Changing circumstances during the residency also enabled Joe to tell stories at the bedside on the Paediatric Ward.
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Helium Arts Teen Remote Programme
During the pandemic Helium Arts' remote pilot programme offered connection and creative engagement for teenagers with long-term health conditions across Ireland who were more isolated than usual. Helium’s vision is for a long-term programme that reaches teenagers living rurally across Ireland.
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Training Notes – Music & Health Training in Ireland
Training Notes is a training initiative of Kids Classics, Ireland's leading music in healthcare organisation. Kids Classics has developed a framework of bespoke training courses which includes introductory workshops, supervised apprenticeships and team mentoring.
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The Balloon Tree
The Balloon Tree is a pair of sculptures by artist Róisín de Buitléar commissioned by Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) for its new Outpatient and Urgent Centre at Connolly Hospital and its Emergency Care facility at Tallaght University Hospital.
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Some Dance to Remember
Some Dance to Remember is an inclusive dance research project using adaptive Irish céilí dance and traditional Irish music for people living with dementia and their professional carers.
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Artist in Residency at Sligo University Hospital
In 2019 The Model commissioned Andy Parsons to be Artist in Residence at Sligo University Hospital. Parsons particularly focused on the Renal Ward where patients undergoing dialysis explored creativity through experiments in painting and drawing.
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1000 Days
1000 Days is a collaborative project between specialist health musicians Dr Rosalind Hawley and Mark Fisher, and spoken word artist Keisha Thompson, sharing stories of children, family, staff and musicians' experiences of health, music and hospitalisation through music and spoken word.
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Our Stories
Our Stories was developed as a creative response to the coming together of the three Dublin Paediatric Hospitals and in preparation for the move into the new children’s hospital, which is currently being built.
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A Bird at My Window and Other Stories
A Bird at My Window and Other Stories is a project by artists Sarah Fuller and Manuela Corbari for children and their families in hospital settings developed for Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture.
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Waterford Residential Care Centre: Per Cent for Art Commission
Artists Conall Cary and Peter McMorris were commissioned to create artworks for Waterford Residential Care Centre under the Per Cent for Art Scheme. The commission was managed by Waterford Healing Arts Trust and involved participation from staff and service users.
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Time in Our Lives
Time in Our Lives is a series of limited-edition illustrated books designed to engage participants and staff in creative conversation and art making during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Off the Wall
Off the Wall is a series of artworks by Alan Dunne at Children's Health Ireland (CHI) Connolly. The artworks were inspired by drawings created by some of the children and young people who visited the centre in 2020, along with conversations the artist conducted with CHI Connolly staff.
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Art and hope in a time of Covid
Gairdín Mhuire is a day care centre for older people located in Dingle. Úna Ní Shé has worked there as a visual artist since 2003. Úna describes her evolving response as an artist to the closure of Gairdín Mhuire to all normal activities in March 2020.
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Tune In with The Happiness Ensemble
Tune In is a multidisciplinary collaboration between filmmakers Aoise Tutty Jackson and Maggie Ryan with members of the 49 North Street community in Skibbereen and MusicAlive. The project was a response to Covid-19 restrictions with a focus on sound, music and ‘Tuning In’.
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Embrace Music
Founded by musicians and Arts & Health practitioners Sharon Murphy and Sadhbh O’Sullivan, Embrace Music is a social enterprise on a mission to provide far-reaching opportunities for engaging with music.
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Freedom to Fly | Creative Enquiry – Arts and Older People
Freedom to Fly, hosted by MusicAlive, is an interdisciplinary, participatory project that engages older people in collaboration with Helga Deasy (choreographer and dancer) and Susan McManamon (musician and choir leader).
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OurVision OurVoice ‘20
A multimedia project devised by artist Rosaleen Heavin in response to Covid-19 restrictions. Delivered online, the project explores experiences of lockdown and isolation with participants from Longford/Westmeath Adult Mental Health Services and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.
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Viriditas
Viriditas is a song cycle by Irish singer and artist Ceara Conway for The Deepest Shade of Green, an Arts and Health programme for Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture. Commissioned by Saolta Arts and Galway 2020, it was created for the staff and patients of the seven hospitals of Saolta University Health Care Group.
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Butterfly Haven
Butterfly Haven is a commissioned artwork by artist Lucy Turner dedicated to remembering our deceased colleagues in Tallaght University Hospital.
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The Museum of Song Postal Project
The Museum of Song is a song collecting project, co-created by artists Tess Leak and Sharon Whooley, that is delivered via the postal service. Part of the Arts for Health Partnership Programme, West Cork, it was adapted in response to the isolation of older residents in community hospitals during the Covid-19 lockdown.
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Summer Stars online art programme
Teenagers with cystic fibrosis face barriers when it comes to connecting and conversing with each other: due to cross-infection issues, they cannot be in the same physical space. Helium Arts established the Summer Stars online art programme in spring 2019 to support these connections and create a space for the development of creative skills.
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Waiting for Me
Waiting for Me is a collaborative visual arts and health project exploring the experience of waiting in an active creative space in the Paediatric Outpatients Area of South Tipperary General Hospital.
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Cúram
Cúram is a four person exhibition by artists Daniel Chester, Cherry Dowling, Amy McGovern and Stephen Rennicks. The artists, based in the environs of County Sligo, had artistic encounters within the realm of healthcare for older people. They were invited to make work responding to that experience.
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Songwriting with older people in care settings
Klawitter Theatre Group delivered songwriting projects with older people who visit the day care facilities at Henrietta Older Peoples Service and with residents in Belmont House Nursing Home, both based in Dublin, from June 2018 until December 2019.
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Le Pont des Arts (The Bridge of Arts)
Le Pont des Arts is a non-profit artistic company working in the paediatric departments of Brussels’ main hospitals. For 21 years, six artists (currently a singer, a musician, a dancer, a storyteller, a juggler and a visual artist) have been performing weekly in children’s rooms.
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The Songbirds
The Songbirds is a piece of theatre researched and written by playwright Guy Le Jeune examining the experiences of people living with dementia, and their primary carers.
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OFFSET
OFFSET was an intergenerational print project in 2019 involving participants in Paediatrics and Care for the Elderly at Galway University Hospitals and staff from the wider hospital community.
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The Sky’s The Limit
The Sky’s The Limit is a permanent installation of uniquely designed hot air balloons in Tallaght University Hospital.
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Memory is Grey
Memory is Grey is a body of work based on artist Gillian Cussen’s experience as a person and as an art facilitator with people who have some form of memory loss (and their loved ones).
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Tracing Autonomy: a reflective approach in support of a person’s autonomy in life
Tracing Autonomy explores autonomy, creativity and end of life. The project is a collaboration between two artists who work at The Prince & Princess of Wales Hospice (PPWH) in Glasgow, Jeni Pearson and Kirsty Stansfield, in consultation with philosopher Prof. Ben Colburn from the University of Glasgow.
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Irish Aphasia Theatre
Irish Aphasia Theatre is a socially engaged theatre and arts and health company working in professional theatre, community and health settings. IAT works with participants who have aphasia and/or acquired brain injuries related to ageing conditions and other brain traumas.
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Stories from the Well-Field
Stories from the Well-Field is an interactive performance created by a group of residents in St. Joseph’s Unit, Bantry General Hospital in collaboration with artist Tess Leak, puppeteer Eoin Lynch and composer Justin Grounds.
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The New Wing
Castlebar-born visual artist Bryan Gerard Duffy was awarded one of the HSE Percent for Art Scheme Commissions in the Sacred Heart Hospital, Castlebar as part of the new wing development in the residential home. Over five months, he collaborated with staff, visitors, and service users of the hospital, with the old dancehall days in Ireland as the starting point for conversations.
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Orchard Stories: A Bealtaine Artist Residency
Visual artist Joanna Hopkins was awarded the inaugural Bealtaine Artist in Residence in a Care Setting in 2017. Over four months, Joanna collaborated with residents of Orchard Day Care Centre in Blackrock, Co. Dublin, using the sensory garden as both a starting point for conversation and as a source for artmaking.
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Theatre for Positive Mental Health
Building on the award-winning Acting for the Future project, Smashing Times is the lead partner on Theatre for Positive Mental Health, promoting collaborative exchange and mutual learning between five partner organisations across Europe.
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Soothing Sounds
Soothing Sounds is a music project that took place in Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) at Tallaght University Hospital. Musician in residence Sophie Lee conducted interactive bedside music sessions with patients for 20 weeks between September 2018 and March 2019.
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Open Gallery
Open Gallery is an art project developed in 2018 by Waterford Healing Arts Trust (WHAT) which invites people living with dementia – and their family members / carers – to look at, discuss and enjoy paintings from the University Hospital Waterford (UHW) Art Collection in a safe and welcoming space, supported by professional artists.
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‘Got It?’
What is the best way to clearly communicate necessary healthcare information? 'Got It?' is a health literacy project by collaborative artists Rowena Keaveny and Julie Spollen, created in partnership with Anam Beo arts and health organisation and Offaly’s Public Participation Network.
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Portrait of a Patient
Portrait of a Patient is a four-piece collection of artwork and poetry by artist Sinead Lawless exploring her personal experience with illness.
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110 Skibbereen Girls
In 2018, artist Toma McCullim worked with the residents, staff and visitors of Skibbereen Hospital Campus on a collaborative art project to create a bronze public sculpture for the Hospital Grounds.
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Open Theatre Practice
Open Theatre Practice was established in 2017 by Outlandish Theatre Platform, theatre company in residence at the Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital. Participants from diverse communities in Dublin 8, the hospital community, performing arts colleagues and other theatre practitioners are invited to take part in the process of making new work in response to a theme.
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Mother Ireland
Mother Ireland is a socially engaged research and performance project led by theatre artists Maud Hendricks and Bernie O’Reilly of Outlandish Theatre Platform in collaboration with the Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital, Dublin. The project examines Ireland’s constitution against lived intersectional experiences of residents of Dublin 8, in relation to housing, migration and birthing.
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Can You See What I See?
Caroline Hyland is an artist in residence at Tallaght University Hospital (TUH). ‘Can You See What I See?’ is a series of paintings by Caroline strongly informed by listening to people with dementia and to those that support them, their families, friends and the medical professions.
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TODAY
TODAY was a photography project located in St Finbarr’s Hospital Campus in Cork city from 2013 to 2016. The project was led by artist Colette Lewis working in participation with healthcare staff to create new photographic work in response to the hospital campus.
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Discover Recover Theatre Project
The Discover/Recover Theatre Project is a mental health educational drama initiative. Embedding local stories in local communities through the medium of theatre, the project is led by Wexford Mental Health Association.
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The Dance Back Home
Ailish Claffey is dancer in residence at Tallaght University Hospital. The role of dance within the TUH Arts Programme is explored in the film documentary The Dance Back Home, created by Claffey in collaboration with visual artist Deirdre Glenfield.
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Pop Up Picnic
Pop Up Picnic is an immersive, multi-sensory performance project for young children with complex needs developed and produced by Helium Arts. Created in partnership with the Jack and Jill Children’s Foundation in 2016 for families in the home, the project has now being adapted for public audiences.
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The Trial
The Trial is a visual art installation on the history of healthcare and human rights in the Irish criminal justice system, made for the Old Courtroom, Kilmainham Gaol Museum, Dublin 8.
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Illuminating Childbirth
This project is an innovative research initiative entitled: 'Illuminating childbirth experiences of women attending a midwife-led service via visual art works - An interpretive phenomenological study.'
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Red Lead Film Group
Red Lead Film Group is a film project based in Waterford City with artist Philip Cullen and men with acquired brain injury.
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The New Normal
The New Normal is a collaborative community arts and health project exploring the lived experience of breast cancer through a visual arts lens. The project took place from 2016 to 2017 with artist John Conway and breast cancer survivors.
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PHOTOVOICES
PHOTOVOICES is a collaborative arts project examining through the camera lens the lived experiences of mental health in the Midlands of Ireland in 2017.
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The Creative Well – Phase II
The Creative Well is a visual arts and health programme that has developed from its 2011 pilot to provide space and place for arts participation in many forms for all in Co. Kildare. The programme is an ongoing partnership between KCC Arts Service, Kildare’s Arts and Wellbeing Specialist Carolann Courtney, the HSE Adult Mental Health Services and visual artists Dominic Thorpe and Emma Finucane.
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continuance
continuance by visual artist Clare Lymer is an installation of video works exploring the human experience of isolation suffered by tuberculosis patients.
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Well Festival of Arts and Wellbeing
Well Festival of Arts and Wellbeing in Waterford celebrates the health benefits of participation in the arts and features a programme of free, fun, inventive and sociable arts events for all ages, across all artforms.
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Pathway
Pathway is a collaborative Per Cent for Art commission between residents of Nazareth Care Village in Sligo and artists Catherine Fanning and Brigitta Varadi. Twelve sculptural ceramic artworks were designed and made for the grounds of the Care Village.
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Forget Me Never Project
The Forget Me Never Project was a collaborative visual art project at Tallaght Hospital from 2015 to 2017, led by Artist in Residence Lucia Barnes. Renal dialysis patients receiving treatment either in hospital or at home, staff, family and artists were all involved. The project resulted in a permanent artwork - The Forget Me Never Tree - in the new Haemodialysis Unit.
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Parachute in the Purse
Artist Sarah Ruttle led a collaboration with artists Tess Leak, Liz Clark and Colm Rooney to ‘imagine an Ireland of the future’ with the older residents and staff of two West Cork Community Hospitals over a three-month period in 2016.
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Drawing the Carers
Drawing the Carers is a series of portraits by artist Róisín Curé of staff in University Hospital Galway. The project was commissioned by Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust in 2016 for a Uniform Recognition Campaign.
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Acting for the Future
Acting for the Future uses participative drama workshops, professional performances and post-show panel discussions with counsellors and clinical psychologists to promote active healthy lifestyles, positive mental health and suicide prevention.
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Daughters of the Revolution
Daughters of the Revolution is a theatre piece exploring women’s experience of maternity in Ireland.
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Songbirds
Songbirds is a music project with nonverbal children and young people with complex health and communication needs at The Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.
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It’s not the size of the candle but the brightness of its light
Visual artist Louise Manifold was commissioned to develop participatory artwork on the theme of active citizenship in older people as part of the Burning Bright programme. In 2013/14, Louise worked across three different care settings in Galway City and County.
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Fuse programme for older people – creative movement projects
Fuse is a multi-disciplinary arts and health programme for older people, managed by MusicAlive and funded by the HSE. As part of Fuse, dance artist Helga Deasy facilitated a series of creative movement projects in locations around Cork city and county including St Finbarr’s Hospital, St Luke’s Home, Oaklodge Nursing Home and Ballyphehane Day Care Centre.
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Kicking the Bucket
Sinead Dinneen and Katie Verling are friends and arts practitioners curious about illness and death. We have experienced life-threatening cancers and live with ongoing medical problems. We developed Kicking the Bucket as a creative, humorous and thought-provoking participatory project on illness, dying, death and grief based on our personal experiences.
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Tiny, Kind Gestures
Designer Orlagh O’Brien and artist Tess Leak, who work collaboratively as Haiku Island Press, facilitated a poetry and book-making project in the Department of Renal Medicine, Cork University Hospital in 2016.
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Illuminate
Illuminate is a film and mental health programme that takes place as part of Cork Film Festival.
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It Made You
It Made You is an album of original songs written by service users of St. Patrick's Mental Health Services in collaboration with The Twilight Programme at St. Patrick's Hospital and renowned Irish songwriter Sean aka ‘Doctor’ Millar.
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The Bell Room
Based on oral history from psychiatric nurses, The Bell Room is a performed audio installation that examines the job of caring as told by those on the frontline.
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Connections
Connections is a dance project facilitated by choreographer Inma Pavon, and interactive artist Trevor Furlong, in collaboration with Headway Cork.
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The Leeside Serotones
The Leeside Serotones are a choral group based in Cork, made up of HSE mental health staff, service users and friends.
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Write Your Mind
Write Your Mind is a collaborative arts project between Jigsaw Offaly, Headstrong and Offaly Youth Theatre exploring youth mental health.
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Poems for Patience
Poems for Patience is an annual anthology of poetry by Irish and international poets displayed on the Arts Corridor of University Hospital Galway and disseminated throughout the waiting area networks of Galway’s public hospitals.
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Journeys
Visual artist Sharon Dipity was commissioned by the HSE Cork Arts and Health Programme in 2014 to create site-specific artwork for Blackrock Hall Primary Care Centre in Cork following a competitive tendering process.
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An Integrated Creative Arts Service at The Prince & Princess of Wales Hospice
The Creative Arts Service is a fully integrated ongoing core service at the Prince & Princess of Wales Hospice, Glasgow. It currently runs four days per week and is delivered by three graduate artists and a creative writer, all experienced in arts and health practice.
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These Tangled Threads
These Tangled Threads was an investigation that reflected on the condition of dementia by artist Toma McCullim. The work was developed during a ten-week studio residency at Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre and resulted in a site-specific installation shown at Uillinn in 2015 during the Skibbereen Arts Festival.
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Cloudlands
Cloudlands is an artist in residence programme for teenagers in hospital led by Helium Arts. Artists Rachel Tynan, Emma Fisher and Eszter Némethi worked in Temple Street Children’s University Hospital, University Hospital Galway and Cork University Hospital respectively between 2012 and 2015.
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Bouncing Away
Bouncing Away is a children’s collaborative book project about resilience and mental health, funded by HSE Northwest. The project culminated in the publication of a children’s mental health book – the first of its kind in Ireland.
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Iontas arts and mental health programme
Iontas is a multi-artform participatory arts and mental health programme which is delivered by Waterford Healing Arts Trust (WHAT) in partnership with the Waterford Wexford Mental Health Services (WWMHS).
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Bedside
Bedside is an art project by Sligo artist Andy Parsons at the Inpatients Unit, Mental Health Services Sligo / Leitrim. In collaboration with patients, the artist developed a series of etchings for each bedside locker, as part of a commission for both male and female wards.
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Silver Strands
Silver Strands was an interdisciplinary, collaborative project that evolved from a series of drama workshops in a residential mental health setting in West Cork, supported by West Cork Mental Health Services.
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Lying in Wait
Lying in Wait was an artist in residence project with adult patients in Tallaght University Hospital led by artist Deirdre Glenfield and supported by the National Centre for Arts and Health (NCAH).
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15 Miles
15 Miles is a Per Cent for Art commission at St. Brendan's Nursing Home in Loughrea, County Galway. In 2013, Galway County Public Arts Office commissioned artist Ceara Conway to produce a photographic participatory-based project.
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Lifesongs
The Lifesongs project aims to bring to life memories, reflections and feelings of older people through a combination of theatre, humour, spontaneous music-making and songwriting.
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Personal Effects: a history of possession
Personal Effects by visual artist Alan Counihan was based on the institutional archives and the belongings of dead or discharged patients from Grangegorman (St.
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Box of Frogs
Box of Frogs is a happy play about being sad. Actress Mary McEvoy, comedian John Moynes and broadcaster Dil Wickremasinghe teamed up with writer Isobel Mahon and director Caroline Fitzgerald to share their stories of personal experience with a mental health problem.
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Azure at St Gabriel’s
In 2014, Butler Gallery was awarded a grant to extend its Azure programme with people living with dementia in Kilkenny. Residents of St Gabriel’s Ward in St Canice’s Hospital were invited to engage with and respond to work from Butler Gallery’s Permanent Collection with a trained arts facilitator.
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The Creative Check Up
The Creative Check Up is an interactive and participatory installation and performative event which has taken place in a variety of arts and health settings in Dublin since being established in early 2014.
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Wise Ways
Wise Ways was a participatory arts project with older people, originating at Raheen Hospital in County Clare. A unique collection of handmade artworks in clay and personal memories or stories were created and exhibited at participating venues.
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The Music of What Happens: A Student’s Guide to Arts and Health
In 2013, Galway Technical Institute was awarded an NAPD Creative Engagement Award to work with visual artist Marielle MacLeman and Further Education students on an introduction to Arts and Health practice. A series of participative workshops informed the publication, The Music of What Happens: A Student’s Guide to Arts and Health.
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E.gress
E.gress is an audio-visual filmic artwork resulting from a regional and multi-sited collaborative project between artist Marie Brett, musician Kevin O’Shanahan and The Alzheimer Society of Ireland.
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The Chair Project: On the Edge
In 2012, students at TASK (Training And Support Kilkenny) exhibited ‘On the Edge: The Chair Project’ as part of Kilkenny Arts Festival. This collection of almost 40 old salvaged chairs illustrated personal feelings, experiences and frustrations associated with mental health issues and the journey to recovery.
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Creative Exchanges
Creative Exchanges is a course developed by Age & Opportunity for anyone leading creative activities with older people in care settings.
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Participatory music-making at St. Joseph’s Care Centre
Musician Eamon Sweeney facilitated participatory music-making sessions for residential and daycare clients of St. Joseph's Centre, South County Dublin, in 2012-2013. The centre provides holistic care for older people who have illnesses associated with ageing, primarily people with a diagnosis of dementia.
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CARE
CARE is an investigation into the ethos of palliative care and the people who work in palliative care. It is a piece of theatre produced by WillFredd Theatre, and developed with the company, artistic collaborators and Irish hospice staff.
Case Studies
The Magician and the Swallow’s Tale
In 2012, Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust was awarded an Arts Council Arts Participation Project Award to work with visual artist Marielle MacLeman on a yearlong arts project in the haemodialysis unit at Merlin Park University Hospital, Galway.
Case Studies
Cut Throat
Cut Throat was the result of a two-year Research Masters in NCAD undertaken by artist Rachel Tynan which aimed to visualise living with long-term illness. The final production of Cut Throat manifested in an exhibition, performance and series of talks at The Lab in Dublin.
Case Studies
Seasons of the Sun
Seasons of the Sun was a Music Residency at Robin House Children’s Hospice, Balloch, Scotland.
Case Studies
Lullaby Factory
Located at Great Ormond Street Hospital, the Lullaby Factory is both a physical structure, appearing to carry out the imaginary processes of making lullabies, and a soundscape, which delivers the lullaby to young patients in their beds or through listening pipes.
Case Studies
Creative Writing at Tallaght Hospital
In 2013 Michael McCarthy was Writer in Residence at Tallaght University Hospital. During his residency he facilitated three hospital groups: for people with chronic pain, an outpatient group for older people, and a creative writing course for staff members of the hospital. Michael also created his own original work in response to his residency in the stroke service.
Case Studies
Spears of Daylight
Spears of Daylight was a collaborative arts project that culminated in an exhibition of site-specific contemporary art inspired by the creative writing of service users at St.
Case Studies
deAppendix
deAppendix is a cultural space co-located with a Dublin suburban GP surgery that hosts a programme of contemporary art exhibitions and talks.
Case Studies
Sanctuary
In 2012, Anam Beo artists Tina Gaffey and Kieran Brennan facilitated an eight-week participant-led pilot project for patients in the Renal Unit of the Midlands Regional Hospital, Tullamore. The accessible technique of print was introduced to participants of various ages who decided on the theme of sanctuary for their group artwork.
Case Studies
Encounters, Triskel@St.Finbarr’s
Encounters was a collaboration between Triskel Arts Centre and St. Finbarr’s Hospital, a multidisciplinary hospital site. The collaboration formed part of the arts and health strand of Cork EU Capital of Culture 2005.
Case Studies
REFLECT Lab
REFLECT Lab was a professional development opportunity in the North West led by Helium for artists and healthcare professionals working with children and young people.
Case Studies
The music programme of the Waterford Healing Arts Trust
The music programme of the Waterford Healing Arts Trust (WHAT) spans from hospital-based performances to participatory music workshops in hospital and community settings.
Case Studies
The Starling Song Project
Starling Song is a song-writing project investigating locality and connecting older people across West Cork.
Case Studies
The Creative Well
The Creative Well is an integrated participatory arts and health programme in County Kildare, supporting mental health and quality of life through the arts and within the context of local communities.
Case Studies
Converging Lives
Converging Lives was a collaboration between artist Marie Brett, musician Kevin O’Shanahan and the Alzheimer Society of Ireland’s (ASI) Bandon Day Care Centre, supported by the HSE Cork Arts and Health Programme and West Cork Arts Centre.
Case Studies
Arts Ability
Arts Ability is an inclusive, participatory arts programme that celebrates the artistic and creative imagination of people who experience mental health problems and/or intellectual, physical or sensory disabilities.
Case Studies
Arts + Minds – promoting the arts in mental health care
Arts + Minds is a Health Service Executive (HSE) arts and mental health programme based in Cork.
Case Studies
F*ck My Life
F*ck My Life (FML) is an original theatre production from Cork Midsummer Festival dealing with the tragedy of Ireland’s teen suicide epidemic.
Case Studies
Menu of Poems
Menu of Poems takes the form of a short anthology of poetry which is distributed annually to health service users in a range of healthcare settings in partnership with Poetry Ireland.
Case Studies
Dialogue Arts + Health
Dialogue Arts + Health was a regionally based professional development project for artists and practitioners working in arts and health settings.
Case Studies
Lived Lives: Materialising Stories of Young Irish Suicide 2003-2008
Lived Lives is an arts-led cross-disciplinary PhD by Seamus McGuinness located within the School of Medicine at University College Dublin which goes behind the statistics to capture stories of some of the young lives lost to suicide in Ireland.
Case Studies
What’s the Story? at St Finbarr’s Hospital, Cork
From Sept 2010 to June 2011, Meridian Theatre Company ran a multi-faceted story gathering arts project in St Finbarr’s Hospital, Cork.
Case Studies
Music Network Continuing Professional Development Programme
The Music Network Continuing Professional Development Programme supports musicians to develop their facilitative skills allowing them to engage in high quality musical experiences in a range of outreach settings including schools, community settings, healthcare settings and early years music.
Case Studies
Lifting the Spirits
Music programmes for older people in residential and day care settings
Case Studies
Arts for Health Partnership Programme
Arts for Health is a partnership programme based in West Cork which integrates the arts programmes into the culture and practice of healthcare settings for older people.
Case Studies
10 x 10 Balloons
On World Mental Health Day, 10 October 2011, 100 helium-filled balloons were situated around Sligo town and county – on the street, in shops and fields – just for that day.
Case Studies
BEAG – Early Years Arts Team Pilot Project
BEAG was a nine month pilot project which involved three artists exploring early years arts development in twelve early childhood settings in Cork city and county.
Case Studies
The Nurses’ Home
The Nurses’ Home book and exhibition was commissioned in 2008 by Mater Campus Hospital Development Ltd.
Case Studies
Niche Community Arts for Health Project
Niche is a Community Health Project, established in 1998, serving the Knocknaheeny/Hollyhill area of Cork city, which has a population of around 8000 people.
Case Studies
Hearth
Hearth is a Mayo based arts programme for older people living in their own homes.
Case Studies
O Bhéal guth Béal
In 2009, musician Ger Wolfe worked alongside older people in day care centres in Gaeltacht Mhúscraí, Co. Cork to compose new music based on people’s experiences of growing up.
Case Studies
In My Own Time
In My Own Time is a creative arts project with a group of older people in continuing and respite care that took place in St Patrick’s University Hospital, Marymount in Cork City.
Case Studies
The Chronic Illness Radio Play Project
Early in 2010, playwright and director Rebecca Moran conducted exploratory workshops with participants from Ceart PatientWise.
Case Studies
Liminality
Liminality is an art project by Ciara McMahon and the Living Gift Transplant Support Group that manifested at the NCAD Gallery Dublin in February 2011.
Case Studies
Waterford Healing Arts Trust – Artist in Residence Programme
The Waterford Healing Arts Trust (WHAT) has been running an Artist in Residence programme in Waterford Regional Hospital (WRH) since 1994.
Case Studies
The Puppet Portal Project
The Puppet Portal Project merged the areas of art, technology and health, in order to facilitate children in hospital to create interactive puppetry performances in four acute hospitals (Dublin, Limerick and Sligo), over a five-month period.
Case Studies
Memory Found
Memory Found is a pilot collaborative visual art project between artist Lucia Barnes, patients with dementia at the Age Related Day Hospital of Tallaght Hospital, Dublin, and carers of patients with dementia at the Blanchardstown Carers Association Centre, Dublin 15.
Case Studies
Personal Effects
Personal Effects is an art project by Jennie Moran that took place in 2009 in the Stroke Unit of Galway’s Merlin Park University Hospital and was managed by the Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust.
Case Studies
The Green Room Project
The Green Room Project was an arts-based research project.
Case Studies
Ian Wilson, Composer in Residence in the Stroke Unit, AMNCH, Dublin
Ian Wilson, Composer in Residence in the Stroke Unit of the Adelaide and Meath Hospital in 2010, developed a new composition based on conversations with staff and patients of the unit.
Case Studies
The Amulet
The Amulet was a national, multi-site participatory arts project led by visual artist Marie Brett which creatively explored the idea of an Amulet as an object signifier relating to critical life-span junctures of birth and death.
Case Studies
Music Network – European Music in Healthcare Settings Training Programme
Music Network participated in the development of a European Music in Healthcare Settings Training Programme with Musique et Santé, France; the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, UK; and The Academy of Music, Krakow, Poland.
Directory (50 results)
Directory
Irish Hospice Foundation
The Irish Hospice Foundation's Arts and Cultural Engagement programme was initiated in 2020 with support from The Creative Ireland programme.
Directory
49 North Street
An initiative of Cork Mental Health Services, 49 North Street in Skibbereen was established in 2017 as a community-based hub for creativity, recovery and wellness in West Cork.
Directory
Dance Theatre of Ireland
Dance Theatre of Ireland's mission is 'Transforming People’s Lives through Dance'.
Directory
Réalta, National Resource Organisation for Arts and Health
Réalta was established in 2023 as the national resource organisation dedicated to developing arts and health in Ireland, founded on decades of pioneering arts and health practice as Waterford Healing Arts Trust (established 1993) and the encyclopaedic knowledge gathered under artsandhealth.ie (established 2011).
Directory
Aoife’s Clown Doctors Ireland
Aoife’s Clown Doctors provide professional clowning entertainment to children in Ireland’s hospital wards, to momentarily offer an escape from the stress and anxiety of the hospital setting for all family members, through laughter and games.
Directory
UL Hospitals Group
The Arts Committee in University Hospital Limerick was established in 2016.
Directory
Waterford City and County Council
The policy at the core of Waterford City and County Council’s provision is ‘access for all to arts activities of all kinds’ and this extends to the arts and health sector.
Directory
Waterford Healing Arts
Waterford Healing Arts is Ireland’s longest established arts and health organisation, founded in 1993 at University Hospital Waterford (UHW).
Directory
Hearth
Hearth is a Mayo based arts programme for older people living in their own homes.
Directory
Mayo County Council
The principles of access and participation are central to the ethos of Mayo County Council Arts Office Service , as reflected in the annual arts programme which offers people of all ages and abilities opportunities to explore their creativity.
Directory
Saolta Arts
Initiated by a generous long-term loan of over 100 works of Modern Irish Art by John and Patricia Hunt, Galway University Hospitals set up an Arts Committee in early 2003 to develop an arts programme for University Hospital Galway and Merlin Park University Hospital.
Directory
Sligo County Council
In County Sligo there are a number of arts and health projects delivered by Sligo County Council Arts Service in partnership with the HSE, which takes a broad-based approach in examining uses of the arts in public health, health promotion and health care.
Directory
Offaly County Council
Arts and health is an important sector for Offaly County Council, for the creative, expressive, wellbeing, social and community benefit of participants but also for the professional development of local artists.
Directory
Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality
Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality has designed an arts-based approach to positive mental health promotion and suicide prevention.
Directory
St Luke’s General Hospital Kilkenny
St Luke's General Hospital is an acute hospital in Kilkenny City which provides acute healthcare services to the people of Carlow and Kilkenny.
Directory
Westmeath County Council
Westmeath County Council aims to provide access, appreciation, awareness and enjoyment of the arts for all involved in arts and health initiatives in order to further include all members of the community in arts practice and to encourage a policy-based approach to the development of arts and health in the county.
Directory
Wexford County Council
Wexford County Council’s Arts Department aims to improve the quality of life for the citizens of County Wexford, building vibrant healthy communities, by enabling people to engage in high quality arts experiences and by stimulating and supporting standards of excellence among artists in their practice.
Directory
Wexford General Hospital
Activities include: Artist in Residence programme Art exhibitions A Menu of Poems: an annual initiative bringing poetry to all patients in hospital to celebrate National Poetry Day Hospital Choir .
Directory
Beehouse Arts
Beehouse Arts is a complimentary arts service based in Tipperary with a vision to promote and enhance healthy living and wellbeing through creativity on a personal and community level.
Directory
Clare County Council
Clare Arts Office’s Arts in Health programme is currently made up of the following programmes: A Time to Seek – Artists Residence in St.
Directory
Cork Arts and Health Programme
Cork Arts and Health Programme (CAHP) is a HSE initiative based in the South Lee (Cork) Community Work Department.
Directory
Cork City Council
Cork City Council develops supports with our partners, for arts organisations and groups in the city.
Directory
Cork University Hospital Campus Arts Committee
Positive health is more than freedom from illness or disease – it is a feeling of wellbeing, an awareness and involvement in the joy of living.
Directory
HSE South Arts & Health Contact Person
Eleanor Moore is the HSE South representative for arts and health.
Directory
Kerry County Council
Kerry County Council Arts Office aims: • to support the arts throughout the county – the benefit of the arts to the greater wellbeing of the citizens of Kerry is acknowledged as being of great importance; • to work with artists and organisations interested in developing meaningful arts and health practice.
Directory
Limerick City and County Council
Arts & Health is supported through the following aims of the Limerick Cultural Strategy 2016-2030; 1.
Directory
MusicAlive
MusicAlive is Ireland’s specialist organisation dealing with the provision, development and promotion of music in healthcare and community settings.
Directory
Raheen Community Hospital and Day Care Centre
Raheen Community Hospital and Day Care Centre in Co. Clare aims to deliver a varied programme of arts to day care visitors and hospital residents.
Directory
Tipperary County Council
Tipperary County Council Arts Service engages with local artists, health and disability agencies and community sectors to promote and support partnerships in the establishment and development of arts and health initiatives with the intention of increasing access to and participation in the arts across a range of settings.
Directory
Arts for Health Partnership Programme
Arts for Health (AfH) is a partnership programme based in West Cork, which has provided a managed arts programme for older people in healthcare settings since 2005.
Directory
Louth County Council
County Louth has developed an alliance of cultural programmes that support and deliver community arts and health projects, events and opportunities.
Directory
MISA Creative Life Centre
The Creative Life Centre at Mercer’s Institute for Successful Ageing (MISA), St James’s Hospital, promotes and highlights the creativity of older people, enabling them to express themselves through art, sculpture, poetry, literature, music and drama.
Directory
National Centre for Arts and Health at Tallaght University Hospital
Our mission is ‘to provide a creative arts and health programme specific to patient, staff and healthcare department needs; that improves the hospital experience by making arts accessible to all.
Directory
Age & Opportunity
Age & Opportunity is the leading national development organisation working to enable the best possible quality of life for us all as we age.
Directory
Arts + Health Co-ordinators Ireland
Arts + Health Co-ordinators Ireland (AHCI) is a support network of professionals who are responsible for managing arts and health initiatives in Ireland.
Directory
Association of Local Authority Arts Officers
The Association is the representative body for Local Authority Arts Officers in Ireland.
Directory
Create
Create is the national development agency for collaborative arts.
Directory
National Gallery of Ireland
The National Gallery of Ireland’s Arts & Health programming recognizes the significant health benefits that engagement with creative practices can have for our community at large, enhancing individual wellbeing while also developing social cohesion.
Directory
The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon
The Arts Council is the national agency for funding, developing and promoting the arts in Ireland.
Directory
Anam Beo
Anam Beo is an independent arts organisation that delivers an Arts-in-Health Programme in Offaly.
Directory
Art Centre, St Luke’s Hospital
St Luke's Hospital in Rathgar, Dublin, has been caring for cancer patients from all over Ireland since 1954.
Directory
Arts Ability
Arts Ability is an inclusive, participatory arts programme which celebrates the artistic and creative imagination of people who experience mental health problems and/or intellectual, physical or sensory disabilities.
Directory
Carlow County Council
The goal of the Carlow County Council Arts Service is to create and develop a participatory and inclusive arts service which is committed to providing artistic excellence throughout the county.
Directory
Children’s Health Ireland
The new children’s hospital will be a world-class facility to look after children and young people from all over Ireland who have complicated and serious illnesses and who are in need of specialist and complex care.
Directory
Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council
In line with the Community Healthcare East Healthy Ireland Plan 2018 - 2023, positive ageing action to “provide opportunities for older people to participate in arts, cultural, social and physical activity groups, and education programmes in day-care services, residential services and in the community” dlr Arts Office view the arts as an important service that contributes to the quality of life for those who live in, work in and visit the County.
Directory
Helium Arts
Helium Arts: • supports a dynamic, child-friendly, family centred, holistic approach to children’s medical provision, within community, primary, and acute healthcare contexts.
Directory
Music & Health Ireland
Music & Health Ireland (formerly Kids Classics) is a not for profit limited company that delivers high quality professional music workshops, performances and music participation opportunities in the heart of healthcare, education and community settings nationally regardless of a person’s social, economic or medical circumstance.
Directory
Kildare County Council
Kildare County Council will continue to identify, advocate for, influence and provide support for artists and agencies involved in arts and health practice.
Directory
Kilkenny County Council
The purpose of the Arts Office is to develop, co-ordinate, motivate, inspire and strengthen artistic activity throughout the city and county.
Directory
Laois County Council
Laois County Council aims to maximise participation in and access to a wide range of artistic experiences across art disciplines and according to the highest standards of excellence; and to work with local health organisations on arts and health programmes.
Perspectives (55 results)
Perspectives
Perspectives
This section presents opinion on aspects of arts and health practice from a range of perspectives including health service users, artists, healthcare professionals and researchers.
Perspectives
Finding my ‘guth’: The Lump vs the Irish Language
Irish surgeon Dr Denis Burkitt discovered Burkitt's lymphoma. Belfast filmmaker Éanna Mac Cana was treated for this cancer when he was 19 years old. His unique documentary feature film, Burkitt, combines his personal experiences as an inpatient with an exploration of the life and work of Dr Burkitt. Éanna discusses how he began re-learning the Irish language while making Burkitt and how finding his ‘guth’ (voice) created an environment for healing.
Perspectives
Strange Gifts: Community and Connection in Illness and Performance
When theatre maker Jenny Macdonald was recovering from breast cancer, she began creating a play inspired by that experience. Exploring the dynamics of caring and being cared for, The Tightrope Walker is a solo performance that seeks to hold a space for the audience the way that a facilitator does, a two-way exchange where the isolation of illness is interwoven with the deep connection of community.
Perspectives
The Stepping Stones Project: Moving with care through uncertainty
For young people who have experienced trauma, nurturing a safe space for creativity to unfold requires particular care and sensitivity. Art therapist Claire Flahavan and artist Emma Finucane brought their specific areas of expertise, and mutually supportive ways of working, to the Stepping Stones project at The Alders Unit, a therapeutic service for children and adolescents affected by sexual abuse. Claire reflects on their collaboration with young service users to create permanent artworks for the Unit’s new home at CHI-Tallaght.
Perspectives
HESITANT LIGHT
Joe Vaněk reflects on the aftermath of his stroke, which curtailed a career designing for theatre, opera and dance that has spanned four decades. An opportunity to write about his experiences for the Irish Heart Foundation marked his tentative return to the artistic fold. Here, he discusses the rekindling of his creative spirit as a writer and artist in a post-stroke world.
Perspectives
‘In life the song is a very important thing’ Museum of Song: Ireland and Ukraine
The Museum of Song is a song collecting project, co-created by artists Tess Leak and Sharon Whooley. New members of the West Cork community from Ukraine were invited to take part in 2022. Tetyana Karpenko and Olha Baglaenko of the Chervona Kalyna choir, supported by interpreter and choir member Ivan Humenuik, reflect on their experiences of sharing culture and kinship through song.
Perspectives
Memento Vivere
Navin Hyder reflects on her three-year artist residency at the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital in Dublin, where she created a large body of work in the hospital’s operating theatres. Hyder details the evolving nature of the residency, new terrain for both artist and hospital staff, and how personal connections with families impacted by cancer shaped its outcomes.
Perspectives
Nothing for us without us: Pavee Point’s creative approach to Traveller men’s health
Patrick Reilly and Michael Collins from Pavee Point Traveller & Roma Centre discuss the health inequalities that Travellers face, the work of the Men’s Health Team, and the Traveller-led creative initiatives that are giving visibility to Traveller men’s experiences.
Perspectives
Wellbeing and the Museum: Inclusive art programming in a changing world
Providing inclusive art experiences for older people within and outside of the museum walls is integral to the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s Engagement & Learning Programme. Helen O’Donoghue and Bairbre-Ann Harkin reflect on the development of remotely accessible art programmes for older audiences during the pandemic and spearheading initiatives that speak to people’s needs in a changing world.
Perspectives
OURSELVES: A Nurse Poet Bears Witness
Most of the poems from my first collection of poetry, OURSELVES, come from vivid memories of my first years in nurse training: the shock and drama of illness; the strengths and weaknesses of those I worked alongside, and bearing witness to the vulnerabilities and suffering of patients.
Perspectives
A view from within: An Arts in Health project for hospital staff during Covid-19
Claire Flahavan works as an art therapist in St Louise’s Unit at Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) Crumlin. Claire reflects on her experience of Sidestep, an Arts in Health project for staff within the Unit at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Perspectives
Teen Spirit: Music adventures in the lockdown era
Davina Flaherty is a singer-songwriter and musician from Galway. A member of CanTeen Ireland, the national young people’s cancer support group, Davina has been taking part in an online music project since summer 2020 led by musicians Seán Carpio and Ríona Sally Hartman.
Perspectives
Time to Unite and Take Action: Managing an Arts and Health Programme during COVID-19
Diary entry 20th March 2020: ‘So much change around the world – every day, every minute’.
Perspectives
My Art and M.E.: The Demands of a Creative Mind
Artist and puppet designer Corina Duyn has been exploring the internal landscape of illness in her work since she was diagnosed with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (M.E.) in 1998. Corina reflects on how her art making has evolved and new avenues of discovery have opened up as she challenges the limitations of the body with the demands of a creative mind.
Perspectives
Your Collection: The Arts Council Collection in Healthcare Settings
There are more than 180 artworks from the Arts Council Collection currently on display in 14 healthcare settings across the Republic of Ireland. Ben Mulligan and Ann O'Connor from the Arts Council provide insights into the lending and selection process, and the impact this artwork can have on healthcare communities.
Perspectives
Asylum Archive: An Archive of Asylum and Direct Provision
‘Memory, for migrants, is almost always the memory of loss.'
Perspectives
from both sides now: A reflection on the positioning of arts in health programmes in relation to healthcare organisations
‘I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now…’ sang Joni Mitchell and indeed, at the risk of sounding ancient, that’s how it has seemed for me in terms of my work in the area of arts in health to date.
Perspectives
When you asked us to look: The world of Open Gallery
Delivering an art project in an acute setting for people with dementia and other age-related conditions can bring unique rewards and challenges. This podcast explores the Open Gallery art viewing programme at University Hospital Waterford from the viewpoint of the healthcare staff, artists and participants involved.
Perspectives
Inhale Hope, Exhale Pain
Susannah Hall, Joint Head of GOSH Arts, reflects on The Temporary Tattoo Parlour at Great Ormond Street Hospital, developed by artist Davina Drummond with adolescent patients.
Perspectives
Culture and the arts in mental health innovation: Young people want and need more than ‘traditional’ ‘treatments’
Dr. Katherine Taylor, a clinical psychologist, advocates for arts-led interventions within child and adolescent mental health as an empowering, safe and cost-effective approach in fostering positive and sustainable change in a young person’s recovery journey.
Perspectives
Social Prescribing: A Collaborative Approach to Health and Wellbeing
People experiencing loneliness and social isolation often seek out their GP for a medical solution to the deep sense of loss and disconnection they feel. Cecily Maher discusses the growing role of Social Prescribing within healthcare provision, which connects individuals to non-medical sources of support within their local community.
Perspectives
Aesthetics and Design in Hospital Interiors
Well-designed hospitals lead to improved healing environments; I write from first-hand experience! Six years ago I spent many weeks in and out of hospital having treatment after surgery for cancer and, coincidentally, concurrent treatment for an autoimmune disease.
Perspectives
END NOTES
Novelist and short story writer Meaghan Delahunt reflects on her work at the Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice in Glasgow. She highlights the importance of creative writing in palliative care and how it's never too late for any of us to explore our full potential.
Perspectives
Spectacular Body
Professor Anna Furse, theatre maker and practising academic, reflects on the personal circumstances that have led to a series of projects interrogating the ‘medical gaze’ and how the body, particularly the woman’s body, becomes spectacular through this gaze.
Perspectives
The Arts: my instrument for living with depression
After many years of living with depression, Carol Tobin was introduced to Arts + Minds, a HSE arts and mental health programme based in Cork. Here she talks about her recovery journey and the impact that participating in the arts has had on her life.
Perspectives
Lines of Escape
Visual artists Anne Cleary and Denis Connolly discuss the inspiration behind their artwork Run River Run for the new 75 bed ward at University Hospital Galway and how the initial challenges of a collaborative approach to creating public artworks led to rewarding avenues of exploration.
Perspectives
Whose Move? Body Politics and Health Equality: Positioning Arts Practice in Contested Territories
When engaging with marginalized experiences and excluded constituents, artists sometimes find themselves outside the current framework of arts and health practice.
Perspectives
The Value of Collaboration: Reflections on the implementation of the Per Cent for Art Scheme in a community nursing unit
As the Director of Nursing of a HSE community nursing unit for older people, I believe that residents should be able to live their lives to the full with opportunities for personal development and enrichment through connections to the wider community.
Perspectives
Opening the Box
Poet Paula Meehan reflects on a time of healing in her life when the excitement and mystery of art transcended the daily process of craft.
Perspectives
In Writing: finding a way through illness
Writer Lia Mills tells us how the notebooks she kept as a cancer patient helped her retain a sense of self during her treatment and led to a positive shift in her relationship with her artform.
Perspectives
A quiet megaphone for your knowledge: an artist’s approach to person-centred arts participation in healthcare
Addressing the imagined participants of an Arts and Health workshop, Marielle MacLeman draws from her experiences of working as an artist in palliative and chronic healthcare settings to reflect upon the values that underpin her responsive approach to person-centred arts participation.
Perspectives
Both Sides of the Coin: The Distinctive Value of Art in Health Care
François Matarasso calls for an acceptance of the differences between arts and science when assessing arts and health practice.
Perspectives
Dante or the DSM*? Art and the re-imagining of ‘mental health’
Dylan Tighe is a musician, performer and theatre-maker with experience of mental distress and treatment who calls upon mental healthcare and society at large to look beyond the medical model to art and artists for a deeper understanding of existential pain and distress.
Perspectives
Mental Health, Recovery and the Role of the Creative Arts
Psychiatrist Dr Pat Bracken reflects on the paradigm shift towards the recovery approach in mental healthcare and the central role of the creative arts in this.
Perspectives
A Love-Filled Slap: A Manifesto for Arts and Health
Director of Arts for Health at Manchester Metropolitan University, Clive Parkinson describes the political thinking that led to and is embodied in the UK’s first Manifesto for Arts and Health.
Perspectives
Working with stories of other people’s traumatic experiences: Questions of responsibility as an artist
I sometimes make artworks dealing with other people’s personal and traumatic experiences, including mental and physical ill-health, and various human rights abuses, often through direct engagement or collaboration with them.
Perspectives
Grey Matters: The role of the Arts and Health in the delivery of ‘Healthy Ireland’
In light of the publication of ‘Healthy Ireland', Senior Health Promotion Officer Caroline Peppard calls for a recognition of the role of the arts in developing a culture of healthcare that goes beyond the scientific and considers all the determinants of health.
Perspectives
Artists, Political Education and the Care of Self in Social Practice
Before I went to art college I was a nurse and nurses, like artists, are trained to look.
Perspectives
Culture and arts in hospitals – a patient’s perspective
Katie Verling draws upon her own experience as an acutely ill patient to advocate for the receptive arts as a means of addressing the anxiety, boredom, isolation and sensory deprivation of patients.
Perspectives
Music in common: Probing the divergent mind-sets underpinning Music Therapy and Music in Healthcare
As a trained music therapist and a professional performing musician who works in healthcare settings, I am often asked ‘What is music therapy?’ and ‘What is the difference between music therapy and music in healthcare?’
Perspectives
A Disruptive Influence – introducing the role of an arts and health co-ordinator
The conjoining of those two spheres - arts and health - is not something that I would have heard of when I first started out as an art student.
Perspectives
The Weapons of Life: A case for arts participation as a creative response to mental health problems
In an era of austerity and scarce resources, a participatory arts programme as an integral part of the mental health services would appear to be an unaffordable luxury.
Perspectives
A Marriage of Apparent Opposites: The Arts in Medical Education
Medicine has always vacillated between the two separate lovers, art and science.
Perspectives
The place of loss in arts and health
The theme of loss surfaces through art again and again, even when it is not named as such.
Perspectives
Blood and Ink
Ben Murnane is a writer who lives in Wicklow and suffers from a rare genetic disorder, Fanconi anaemia. He describes how creativity helped him cope with his disease, and discusses a new film project involving teenagers with chronic illnesses.
Perspectives
It’s not you, it’s me
Kildare Arts Officer, Lucina Russell, argues for the place of arts and health practice as an integral part of a local authority arts programme, and describes how her own recent experience of healthcare has deepened her appreciation for this field of work.
Perspectives
Where does arts and health research belong in academic terms?
This podcast features extracts from a round table discussion by a group of postgraduate researchers around the academic positioning of arts and health research. It was hosted by the Waterford Healing Arts Trust in the School of Nursing Trinity College in 2011 and chaired by Catherine McCabe PhD.
Perspectives
Shall we discuss this outside? A look at artistic and medical responses to ethical quandaries
Artist and General Practitioner, Dr Ciara MacMahon, discusses how the fields of art and medicine differ in their responses to ethical issues and cites two contemporary artworks that raise challenging ethical questions of relevance to medics.
Perspectives
Can good arts and health practice be taught?
Hilary Moss argues for the need for accredited and on-the-job training for artists working in healthcare settings to ensure best arts and heath practice and place the work of artists in this field on an equal footing with health professionals.
Perspectives
The artist’s point of view
Between them, Helene Hugel and Marie Brett have long and varied experience of working as artists in a range of healthcare settings. Here they consider arts and health as an arts practice and reflect upon some of the challenges of sustaining artistic vision and integrity across different projects while building meaningful relationships with partners and participants.
Perspectives
A social model for health
Aidan Warner, Principal Community Worker with the HSE South (Cork), argues that art and health should consider a social model of health as the context for its practice in Ireland.
Perspectives
Crossword – a patient’s reflection on the WHAT arts programme in the WRH Dialysis Unit
Johanna Tanner is a Dialysis patient in Waterford Regional Hospital who has been participating in the Waterford Healing Arts Trust’s arts programme since 2008. Here she talks about her experience.
Perspectives
Why arts and health should not be confused with arts and disability?
I suspect the reason arts and health and arts and disability are seen as being one and the same thing may be due to some peoples’ perceptions around disability primarily being a health issue.
Perspectives
Art in healthcare contexts: To evidence or not to evidence
Evidence-based medicine is the use of current best research in making decisions about the care of individual patients. With the delivery of arts projects within healthcare settings, there is a debate at large as to whether it is appropriate to apply an evidence-based approach to arts interventions. Catherine McCabe PhD, lecturer at Trinity College Dublin, School of Nursing and Midwifery, presents her views.
Perspectives
To evidence or not to evidence?
Evidence-based medicine is the use of current best research in making decisions about the care of individual patients. With the delivery of arts projects within healthcare settings, there is a debate at large as to whether it is appropriate to apply an evidence-based approach to arts interventions. Sheelagh Broderick, artist and PhD researcher, presents her views.
About (6 results)
About
About
artsandhealth.ie is the national website for arts and health in Ireland.
About
History of arts and health in Ireland
Over the last 40 years there has been increasing recognition internationally of the contribution the arts can make to the health, quality of life and social wellbeing of all in society and in particular to those in healthcare settings.
About
Editorial Panel
The Editorial Panel ensures long term, transparent and viable structures inform the work of artsandheath.ie.
About
What is arts and health?
A young patient creating shadow puppets with an artist by the bedside, a doctor singing with their workplace choir, a creative writing workshop for people in recovery, a painting in the hospital corridor that sparks the imagination, a concert in the gardens of a nursing home, an invitation to dance, to write, to make, a space to reimagine the healthcare experience….
About
About us
artsandhealth.ie is the national website for arts and health in Ireland.
About
Privacy Policy
Effective date: May 2018.
Advice (3 results)
Advice
Advice
Are you interested in developing arts experiences with healthcare communities.
Advice
Advice for Healthcare Professionals
This section provides some prompts and resources for health and social care professionals interested in bringing artist-led creativity to their settings.
Advice
Advice for artists
For artists interested in developing arts experiences with healthcare communities and other aspects of arts and health practice, the Advice page provides prompts, information and resources on how to get started, professional development, training and work opportunities.
Inspiration (5 results)
Inspiration
Covid Chronicles
Healthy Ireland is the national framework for action to improve the health and wellbeing of everyone living in Ireland. The Strategic Action Plan 2021-2025 includes priority focus areas for arts and culture.
Inspiration
Arts Council Collection
The Arts Council Art Collection comprises over 1,100 works by Irish artists, which it loans to public spaces including galleries, libraries, schools and hospitals.
Inspiration
Poetry Prescriptions
Initiated during the pandemic, these poetry prescriptions have been chosen or written by healthcare workers, arts and health practitioners, and health service users.
Inspiration
Conversations
A mixture of long-form conversation pieces and recorded webinars.
Inspiration
Bursary Archive
A small moment of magic as brush touches canvas; a glimpse into the creative lives of teenagers living with illness; a dance artist reflecting on her experiences in hospitals and care homes… the documentary films, podcasts, publications, long-form essays and visual chronicles that have been funded by the artsandhealth.ie bursary since 2013 offer powerful, candid, sometimes humorous, often poignant insights into arts in healthcare.
Podcasts (23 results)
Podcasts
HSE Talking Health and Wellbeing Podcast – Traveller Wellbeing Through Creativity
Martin Beanz Warde discusses his ‘Through Our Eyes’ photography project, funded under the Traveller Wellbeing Through Creativity initiative in 2022, and his personal story about expressing his creative ability in a variety of ways.
Podcasts
HSE Talking Health and Wellbeing Podcast – Staff Choirs
This HSE Talking Health and Wellbeing Podcast focuses on staff choirs and their impact on health and wellbeing. Alison Baker Kerrigan, Arts Officer in Tallaght University Hospital, is joined in conversation by podcast host Fergal Fox.
Podcasts
The Arts & Ageing Podcast
What Next? tells the story of four artists who worked with older people on a project that broke the mould. Their stories are told through the Arts and Ageing Podcast series.
Podcasts
Dealing In The Reality: Other People’s Practices
Dealing In The Reality is a panel talk exploring Other People's Practices (OPP), an artist residency and research programme with the National Forensic Mental Health Service.
Podcasts
Volcano Days in the Writing Room by Sylvia Cullen
Writer Sylvia Cullen was awarded an artsandhealth.ie artist bursary in 2020 to reflect on her 14-year creative writing residency at Killagoley Training & Activation Centre (KTAC) in Enniscorthy.
Podcasts
When you asked us to look: The world of Open Gallery
Delivering an art project in an acute setting for people with dementia and other age-related conditions can bring unique rewards and challenges. This podcast explores the Open Gallery art viewing programme at University Hospital Waterford from the viewpoint of the healthcare staff, artists and participants involved.
Podcasts
Mind-Reading 2017: Mental Health and the Written Word
Mind-Reading 2017 was a one-day programme of talks and workshops at dlr Lexicon seeking to explore productive interactions between literature and mental health both historically and in the present day.
Podcasts
Tiny Kind Gestures
Artist Tess Leak and designer Orlagh O’Brien of Haiku Island Press collaborated with 24 patients attending the Renal Unit at Cork University Hospital on a collection of haiku-inspired poetry. In 2017, diverse voices from the town of Skibbereen and surrounding area read aloud the entire collection of Haiku poems ‘Tiny Kind Gestures’.
Podcasts
Arts and Health Check Up, Check In 2017 – Keynote conversation between Mark Storor and Patrick Fox
A keynote conversation between artist and theatre maker Mark Storor and Patrick Fox from Heart of Glass chaired by Ailbhe Murphy from Create.
Podcasts
Arts and Health Check Up, Check In 2017 – Showcasing Strand
Presentations on The Creative Well: Emma Finucane (Visual Artist) and Catherine O’Grady (HSE Mental Health Services); 15 Miles: Bernie Austin (Director of Nursing, St. Brendan’s Nursing Home, Loughrea) and Ceara Conway (Visual Artist and Singer); and Care: Dr Regina McQuillan (St Francis Hospice) and Willfredd Theatre.
Podcasts
A quiet megaphone for your knowledge – Marielle MacLeman
Addressing the imagined participants of an arts and health workshop, Marielle MacLeman draws from her experiences of working as an artist in palliative and chronic healthcare settings to reflect upon the values that underpin her responsive approach to person-centred arts participation.
Podcasts
Sharon Murphy and Carolann Courtney: Singing and Health – A choir for people with dementia
The National Centre for Arts and Health at Tallaght University Hospital presented the seminar ‘Music and Health: Promoting excellence in practice’ in 2015.
Podcasts
Paula Higgins at the NCAH Music and Health Seminar 2015
Paula Higgins, Music Therapist with St. Patrick's Mental Health Services, discusses a collaborative song-writing project between singer-songwriter Sean Millar and over 90 service users which culminated in the release of the album, It Made You.
Podcasts
Caroline Peppard: The role of music in promoting health
Caroline Peppard is Senior Health Promotion Officer with HSE Dublin Mid Leinster.
Podcasts
Dr. Hilary Moss: Music and Health, a continuum of practice
Dr.
Podcasts
Professor Desmond O’Neill: Music and Health: From aesthetic support to formal music therapy
The National Centre for Arts and Health presented the seminar ‘Music and Health: Promoting excellence in practice’ on 23 October 2015.
Podcasts
Symphony of the Sea
A collaboration between musician and composer Justin Grounds, visual artist Tess Leak and participants of Clonakilty Community Hospital, as part of the West Cork Arts Centre-managed Arts for Health Partnership Programme, inspired by the everyday seaside activity of beach combing.
Podcasts
The Amulet
This radio documentary, made by Caroline Brennan from GiantLeap Productions, follows the work of Cork-based artist Marie Brett who collaborated with 10 Irish families who have experienced infant loss.
Podcasts
Talking Theatre: Dylan Tighe in conversation with Prof. Ivor Browne at Cork Midsummer Festival
Dylan Tighe's Record at Cork Midsummer Festival in 2012 explored his experiences of depression and living with mental illness.
Podcasts
Body Conscious Exhibition Talk
Mary Grehan interviews artist Dorothy Ann Daly about her work on the exhibition Body Conscious in Waterford Regional Hospital and her experience of making art since her diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis in the late 90s.
Podcasts
National | Dialogue Arts + Health Conversation #3: Creative Risk
Conversation #3 Creative Risk National Dialogues | Arts + Health 6.12.11 Rua Red, Tallaght, Dublin A focused exchange on how creative risk can be further encouraged and facilitated within healthcare settings.
Podcasts
National | Dialogue Arts + Health Conversation #2: Co-production and Ownership of Work
Conversation #2 Co-production and Ownership of Work National Dialogues | Arts + Health 6.12.11, Rua Red, Tallaght, Dublin A discussion exploring the ethical questions around ownership of artworks and projects that are developed in healthcare settings, including the participant's perspective.
Podcasts
National | Dialogue Arts + Health Conversation #1: Partnership and Collaboration
Conversation #1 Partnership and Collaboration At National Dialogues | Arts + Health 6.12.11, Rua Red, Tallaght, Dublin A conversation examining the challenges and opportunities, intrinsic and at times essential, to the development of contemporary art projects in healthcare settings.
Videos (67 results)
Videos
Dance Bualadh Bos
Dance Bualadh Bos is an interactive dance performance created in collaboration with dance artists Ailish Claffey and Philippa Donnellan and older communities in County Kildare. The artists were awarded the artsandhealth.ie Documentation Bursary Award 2022 to capture Dance Bualadh Bos on film.
Videos
The Story of Réalta, The National Body for Arts + Health in Ireland
Réalta, the National Body for Arts + Health in Ireland, launched in March 2023. This short film traces Réalta's journey from the founding of Waterford Healing Arts Trust in 1993, to the establishment of artsandhealth.ie in 2011, to officially becoming the national resource organisation for arts and health.
Videos
Webinar recording – Inclusive methods of arts engagement for older people in long stay care
Are you interested in developing age-appropriate and inclusive arts activities with artists for older people in your service? This webinar explores different arts approaches, current arts programming, and resources for health and social care professionals.
Videos
Webinar recording – Developing arts programmes for older people in long stay care
Practical guidance for healthcare managers on developing and implementing arts programming for older people in long stay care.
Videos
Moments of Light – Creative Engagement with Children in Health Contexts
Sarah Fuller and Yvonne Cullivan, Artists with Helium Arts, discuss their experiences of working with children and young people through the arts in healthcare settings in Galway.
Videos
The Art of Being Healthy and Well National Symposium
The Art of Being Healthy and Well national symposium took place in June 2022 at the Royal College of Physicians in Dublin, co-hosted by the Creative Ireland Programme, the Department of Health (Healthy Ireland), the HSE and the Arts Council.
Videos
Dance and Health: Carolann Courtney in conversation with Philippa Donnellan, Shann Morris and Irene Kelly
Dance and health practice is explored through personal insights into Age & Opportunity’s Artist in Residence in a Care Setting initiative at Naas Day Centre which took place against the backdrop of the pandemic in 2021.
Videos
The Power of the Puppet
A video lecture by Corina Duyn documenting her 23 year long creative journey through chronic illness with a focus on puppetry.
Videos
Do we have the “right” story? In Conversation with Dr Suzanne Denieffe, Joe Brennan and Paula Lowney
Do we have the “right” story? is a narrative storytelling research project exploring the experiences of those living and working in mental health community residences in HSE South East Community Healthcare.
Videos
Looking to the Future: Arts & Health in Ireland
Our panel looks to the future and explore their own aspirations for arts and health practice in Ireland.
Videos
The Making of Yes, But Do You Care?
Yes, But Do You Care? is a body of cross-disciplinary art works created by visual artist Marie Brett and choreographer / dancer Philip Connaughton in collaboration with members of the Dementia Carers Campaign Network.
Videos
Waterford Residential Care Centre: Publicart.ie Video Series
How do artists create and install art in a healthcare setting and have meaningful engagement with patients and staff? A publicart.ie video exploring artworks created by Conall Cary and Peter McMorris for the Waterford Residential Care Centre as part of a Per Cent for Art commission.
Videos
Public Art in Healthcare: Claire Meaney in conversation with George O’Neill and Conall Cary
The joys and challenges of Per Cent for Art Scheme commissioning in healthcare settings are explored in this online conversation featuring Claire Meaney, Director of Waterford Healing Arts Trust, George O’Neill, Project Manager for HSE Estates in the South East, and artist Conall Cary.
Videos
Cultural Leadership: Gráinne Hope in conversation with Moira Sinclair
Gráinne Hope, founder and Artistic Director of Kids’ Classics, and Moira Sinclair, Chief Executive of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Chair of Clore Leadership, explore the theme of cultural leadership, including its role within the field of arts and health, during an online conversation in April 2021.
Videos
A Bird At My Window and Other Stories
Transforming the bedsides of young patients into miniature theatre spaces, Sarah Fuller and Manuela Corbari share an enchanting collection of stories where the natural and human worlds are intertwined.
Videos
Lán De Cheol
A short film by Sean Phair documenting the Freedom to Fly project with Mayfield Men’s Shed. This project took place as part of Creative Enquiry – Arts and Older People, an investigative collaborative venture looking at barriers to participation in the arts for older people.
Videos
In Conversation: Tess Leak and Sarah Cairns – New Pathways to Connect
Artist Tess Leak and Activities Director Sarah Cairns from Bantry General Hospital explore the learning from the remote delivery of The Museum of Song Postal Project.
Videos
Check Up Check In 2020: Keynote Address by Dr. Jenny Elliott
Why artistic risk-taking, creativity and wellbeing are vital components of transforming contemporary healthcare culture - Keynote by Dr Jenny Elliott, Artistic Director of Arts Care.
Videos
SCRUBS Cork University Hospital Workplace Choir sing Lean on Me by Bill Withers
SCRUBS is a workplace choir made up of staff (current, former and retired) from Cork University Hospital.
Videos
The Sea, Is grá geal mo chroí
A poetic reflection on life on the West Cork coast as remembered by the residents of Clonakilty Community Hospital.
Videos
Shine Your Light
Shine Your Light is produced by That's Life in honour of frontline staff and people affected by Covid-19. This light installation was projected on Kilcornan House, Clarinbridge, Galway in April 2020.
Videos
Stories from the Well-Field
Artist Tess Leak collaborated with a group of residents in St. Joseph’s Unit, Bantry General Hospital, puppeteer Eoin Lynch and composer Justin Grounds to create Stories from the Well-Field, bringing to life residents' poems about enduring childhood friendships. Awarded the 2018 artsandhealth.ie documentation bursary.
Videos
Hospital Voices
Hospital Voices is a choral work created by composer Eric Sweeney and poet Edward Denniston to mark the 25th anniversary year of Waterford Healing Arts Trust.
Videos
The Rhinestone Cowboy Sessions present SIVE
The Rhinestone Cowboy Sessions are a series of live recorded sessions with surprise music artists and Past Times Community Choir, a choir supporting people living with dementia, their families, friends and communities in Co. Kildare.
Videos
The Rhinestone Cowboy Sessions present Charlie McGettigan
The Rhinestone Cowboy Sessions are a series of live recorded sessions with surprise music artists and Past Times Community Choir, a choir supporting people living with dementia, their families, friends and communities in Co. Kildare.
Videos
The Second Hand of The Clock
A poet, a raconteur, and two nurses escape the clinical confines of dialysis to reveal how an Arts and Health programme enhances time and fosters human connection, long after their traces are wiped away by Actichlor. Saolta Arts was awarded the 2017 artsandhealth.ie Documentation Bursary to work with filmmaker Tom Flanagan and visual artist Marielle MacLeman on this film.
Videos
Check Up Check In 2018
Arts and Health Check Up Check In 2018 took place on 26 April at Crawford Art Gallery in Cork on the theme of ‘building momentum’.
Videos
The Dance Back Home
Ailish Claffey is dancer in residence at Tallaght University Hospital. The role of dance within the Arts Programme at the hospital is explored in the film documentary The Dance Back Home (2017), created by Claffey in collaboration with Deirdre Glenfield (visual artist in residence) and in association with The National Centre for Arts and Health, Tallaght University Hospital.
Videos
The New Normal
The New Normal is a collaborative community arts and health project exploring the lived experience of breast cancer through a visual arts lens.
Videos
ANIMA
ANIMA, a film by Colm Mullen exploring visual artist Marie Brett's research on death and care, was funded through the 2016 artsandhealth.ie Documentation Bursary.
Videos
The Soothsayers’ Sounds of Superpowers
Teenagers with experience of cancer from CanTeen Ireland joined forces with composer and multi-instrumentalist Sean Carpio to form The Soothsayers.
Videos
Arts and Health Check Up, Check In, 2017
A little flavour of what took place during the second Arts and Health Check Up, Check In at The Model, Sligo in May 2017.
Videos
Time
Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust commissioned visual artist Finbar 247 to see if art can change how we feel in a hospital.
Videos
The Museum of Making and Mending
Following nearly 15 years of working with artists from West Cork and further afield, a group of people attending Skibbereen Day Care Centre decided to create their own museum at Uillinn Gallery in Skibbereen in 2016.
Videos
artsandhealth.ie 5th Birthday
A short film celebrating the 5th birthday of artsandhealth.ie.
Videos
Reflecting Through Art
Brendan McCarthy from the Cork Mental Health Foundation introduces Reflecting Through Art, a 2016 exhibition at Cork University Hospital Art Gallery.
Videos
Clive Parkinson – A Love Filled Slap in the Face: A Manifesto for Arts and Health
Clive Parkinson of Arts for Health, Manchester Metropolitan University shared his experience of developing a manifesto for arts and health in the UK within the political climate of the time at the inaugural Arts and Health Check Up, Check In which took place in Dublin in January 2016.
Videos
Pat Cooke – Proclaiming Arts and Health Manifestoes in 2016
This is a video of Pat Cooke’s presentation at the inaugural Arts and Health Check Up, Check In which took place in Dublin in January 2016.
Videos
Arts and Health Check Up, Check In, 2016
This video documents the inaugural Arts and Health Check Up, Check In which took place in January 2016.
Videos
Painting Back
In 2015, the Void Engage programme at Void in Derry delivered Painting Back, a project that brought award-winning artist Ann Quinn into contact with people from Thackeray Place and Seymour Gardens Nursing Homes and Foyleville Day Care Centre.
Videos
Waterford Healing Arts Trust
A behind-the-scenes look at one of Ireland's leading arts and health programmes.
Videos
NCH Musicians in the National Rehabilitation Hospital
The National Concert Hall's ECO programme provides monthly music workshops, concert performances and ward visits facilitated by a dedicated team of professional musicians in the National Rehabilitation Hospital, providing life-enriching musical experiences to those unable to attend a concert as a result of an accident, illness or injury.
Videos
Cloudlands
The Cloudlands project is an artist in residence programme run by Helium Arts, an arts and health organisation for children.
Videos
The Waiting Room
The Waiting Room is a video artwork created by artist Deirdre Glenfield in response to the waiting room experiences of patients at Tallaght Hospital.
Videos
E.gress
E.gress is an audio-visual filmic artwork resulting from a regional and multi-sited collaborative project between artist Marie Brett, musician Kevin O’Shanahan and The Alzheimer Society of Ireland.
Videos
Do you believe in mental illness?
This artwork by Alice Burns explores urban myths regarding mental health using the definition of ‘myth’ by William Bascom.
Videos
The Room
This short documentary film entitled The Room is the result of the inaugural documentation bursary from artsandhealth.ie.
Videos
Arts for Health Strategy 2013 – 2016
An animation detailing the strategy of Arts for Health, a managed arts programme for older people in healthcare settings, embedded into the community hospitals and day care services in West Cork.
Videos
beyond the box
This video documents beyond the box an artist and curator discussion chaired by Patrick Fox, Director of Create, with artists Emma Fisher, Eszter Néethi, Rachel Tynan and curator Katy Fitzpatrick.
Videos
Music in Hospitals: 7 Years On
This short film documents a 3-day music residency entitled ‘Music in Hospitals – 7 years on’ which took place in May 2013 and was hosted by the Waterford Healing Arts Trust.
Videos
Cloudlands Dublin
Rachel Tynan is Artist in Residence on Helium's Cloudlands Dublin project.
Videos
Two Suitcases
Two Suitcases is a short film by Ben Murnane.
Videos
F*ck My Life
F*ck My Life (FML) is an original theatre production from Cork Midsummer Festival dealing with the tragedy of Ireland’s teen suicide epidemic.
Videos
Converging Lives
In 2011, visual artist Marie Brett and musician Kevin O’ Shanahan collaborated with The Alzheimer Society of Ireland’s Bandon Day Care Centre on a project entitled Converging Lives.
Videos
Flow
This film was shown as part of the Captured Time exhibition in Waterford Regional Hospital in May/June 2011.
Videos
Beag: Early Years Arts Programme
This short film gives an overview of the Beag Project, an Early Years Arts programme by Graffiti Theatre Company, supported by Cork City and County Councils and the Cork Arts and Health Programme, HSE South.
Videos
Music and Storytelling
Helium in partnership with WHAT presented a continuous professional development talk and workshop entitled Music and Storytelling for Children in Hospital by artists Caoimhe Conlon (Musician) of Music Alive and Fiona Dowling (Storyteller) in March 2012.
Videos
The Puppet Portal Project
The Puppet Portal Project merged the areas of art, technology and health, in order to facilitate children in hospital to create interactive puppetry performances in four acute hospitals (Dublin, Limerick and Sligo), over a five-month period.
Videos
Liminality
This is a selection of eight minute extracts from a 20 minute HDV film made in collaboration with members of the Living Gift Transplant Support group.
Videos
Lifting the Spirits
Following a successful pilot by Tolka Area Partnership (TAP) in association with HSE Health Promotion Unit of a structured music programme entitled Lifting the Spirits for older people in a residential care setting in 2010, three further music programmes were delivered between November ’11 and March ’12 for older people in the following residential and day care settings: Cuan Ros Residential Centre, Navan Road, Cabra, Dublin 7 (20 participants) Odins Wood Day Care centre Finglas, Dublin 11 (24 Participants) Nethercross Day-Care centre, Finglas, Dublin 11 (15 Participants) .
Videos
The Amulet
Led by visual artist Marie Brett The Amulet is a research project based at Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH) which developed in collaboration with members of Ballyphehane/Togher Art & Craft Initiative (BTACI) plus hospital staff, patients and visitors.
Videos
The Quickening
Marie Brett and John McHarg worked collaboratively for 18 months on an arts and health project called On the Edge of My Sky in partnership with Sirius Arts Centre, Crawford College of Art, Cork County Arts Office and the HSE which enabled critical research of their respective practices: artist & art therapist.
Videos
End of Life Symbol Project
In recognition of the cycle of life and the fact that many people die in acute hospitals in Ireland, the End of Life committee in Waterford Regional Hospital (WRH) was set up to look at ways of improving the culture of care regarding dying, death and bereavement in hospital.
Videos
A Menu of Poems
A Menu of Poems - All Ireland Poetry Day, 6 October 2011.
Videos
Tools of the Trade
Tools of the Trade - memories linked to hand tools of farm, field, home & trade.
Videos
What is the WHAT effect?
What is the WHAT effect.
Videos
artsandhealth.ie
An animation detailing the main features of www.artsandhealth.ie.
Guidelines (39 results)
Guidelines
Performing Anxiety: A resource for audience-facing arts projects about mental health
Performing Anxiety is a good practice resource for anyone who wants to make live artistic work about mental health, from autobiographical shows about anxiety and depression to participatory projects working with vulnerable people.
Guidelines
Homemade Circus Toolkit for Care Home Environments
The Homemade Circus Toolkit is designed to equip carers and activity coordinators with the skills and confidence to lead inspiring circus activity sessions in care home settings.
Guidelines
Assessing the Impact of Arts and Creativity Interventions for Older People: A Public Health Evaluation Toolkit
This toolkit by the all-Ireland Institute of Public Health aims to support the arts and creativity sector to design, plan, conduct, assess and report on evaluations of arts and creativity programmes and interventions within a public health context.
Guidelines
HSE Model of Care for Dementia in Ireland
The HSE Model of Care for Dementia sets out a range of targets and practical advice on assessment, diagnosis, treatment, care and support of people with dementia. The Post-Diagnostic Model of Care includes the role of the arts, and creative arts therapies, in supporting cognition and emotional wellbeing.
Guidelines
A Guide for Care Settings: Engaging an Artist and Sourcing Funding
This guide produced by Age & Opportunity addresses two of the biggest queries relating to arts for older people in care settings: how to engage an artist and where to source funding in Ireland.
Guidelines
What Next? Arts and Ageing Resources
This e-publication brings together a set of findings, recommendations, reflections and references informed by a Podcast and Workshop series held in 2022 that revisited the project Creative Enquiry: Arts and Older People.
Guidelines
Creative Health Quality Framework
The Creative Health Quality Framework outlines a set of principles articulating good practice for creative and cultural initiatives that aim to support people's health and wellbeing.
Guidelines
I Love Museums but they Don’t Love Me: Age and Disability Arts Access Info Sheet
This information sheet presents the opinions of arts venues and older people, including those who also identify as people with disabilities, in how to better engage with older audiences. It has been developed by Age & Opportunity and Arts & Disability Ireland.
Guidelines
Arts & Creative Charter for Older People
The Arts & Creative Charter for Older People sets out the arts sector’s commitment to promoting key values and guiding principles in engaging with older people.
Guidelines
Arts Council Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Toolkit
The Arts Council's Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Toolkit has been produced to support arts organisations to prepare and produce their Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy and Action Plans.
Guidelines
Sustaining the Self Toolkit
A self-reflection toolkit designed by artist Marie Brett to support self-care among those working in arts and health.
Guidelines
COVID-19 Guidelines for the Safe Presentation of Festivals & Live Events
This dynamic document by the Arts Council and Fáilte Ireland, published in June 2021, will evolve to reflect new government advice and changes to protocols as they emerge.
Guidelines
A Toolkit for Arts & Creativity in Care Settings
Age & Opportunity's Toolkit for Arts & Creativity in Care Settings is designed for use by managers and staff, in particular care setting creative activity co-ordinators, as well as non-arts professionals interested in arts in care contexts.
Guidelines
Working In Intercultural Contexts: Guide for Local Authorities and Cultural Providers
A Guide for Working in Intercultural Contexts has been produced by local authorities in Mayo, South Dublin and Donegal and is funded under the Arts Council's Invitation to Collaboration Scheme.
Guidelines
Guidance for working online, and online safeguarding if you’re working with vulnerable people (UK)
This guidance has been compiled in partnership between UK organisations the Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance, Arts Marketing Association, 64 Million Artists, and Real Ideas.
Guidelines
An Introduction to Arts And Health // 10 Things to Consider
This publication is designed for healthcare professionals, artists and others who want to learn more about arts and health practice and may be at the early stages of planning an arts and health project.
Guidelines
All Heads Together – A ReCreate resource for artists and teachers working in inclusive educational settings
In partnership with Trinity College Dublin, this evidence-based handbook by ReCreate attempts to provide insight from the literature on pedagogy and educational theory and offers practical guidance to teaching artists and teachers working with reuse materials in inclusive educational settings.
Guidelines
Dementia & Imagination: Research Informed Approaches to Visual Arts Programmes
This handbook is a set of useful ideas and recommendations that come from a robust research project setting out some foundations for developing visual arts projects with and for people affected by dementia.
Guidelines
Good practice in the design of homes and living spaces for people with dementia and sight loss
These guidelines are based on findings from a study which aimed to assess the research evidence around what works well for visually impaired people with dementia in terms of the design of their homes and the things in them.
Guidelines
Health Building Note: Dementia-friendly Health and Social Care Environments
A set of design principles for dementia-friendly environments in healthcare buildings.
Guidelines
Public Art: Per Cent for Art Scheme General National Guidelines
National guidelines for the implementation of the Per Cent for Art Scheme.
Guidelines
Health Building Notes: General design guidance for healthcare buildings
Health Building Notes give best practice guidance on the design and planning of new healthcare buildings and on the adaptation/extension of existing facilities.
Guidelines
Volunteering in the Arts Toolkit
This toolkit provides a range of resources to help volunteer-involving arts organisations of all sizes to better engage and manage their volunteers.
Guidelines
Towards Confident Film-making: Programme Handbook
This workbook is a resource for young people's organisations interested in delivering film projects.
Guidelines
Arts and Volunteering: A practical toolkit for arts organisations and groups seeking to involve volunteers (PDF)
The need for this publication was identified by Volunteer Now and Voluntary Arts Ireland through various pieces of research into volunteering in the arts sector in Northern Ireland.
Guidelines
Artspulse Evaluation Toolkit (PDF)
A user-friendly guide to evaluating arts and wellbeing projects.
Guidelines
Our Duty to Care (PDF)
The principles of good practice for the protection of children and young people.
Guidelines
Health Services Intercultural Guide: Responding to the needs of diverse religious communities and cultures in healthcare settings (PDF)
A guide developed in response to an expressed need by healthcare staff across a range of cultural backgrounds for knowledge, skills and awareness in delivering care to people from backgrounds other than their own.
Guidelines
Guidelines for the protection and welfare of children and young people in the arts sector (PDF)
A document to assist arts organisations in the development of their own individual child protection and welfare policies and procedures.
Guidelines
Acting for the Future: Using drama and theatre to promote positive mental health
A model of best practice for using drama workshops and professional theatre performances to promote positive mental health Author(s): Mary Moynihan & Paul Kennedy.
Guidelines
Arts in Hospital: Handling the Media
A general introduction to handling the media in arts and health contexts, particularly aimed at personnel who may not have had press responsibilities in previous jobs.
Guidelines
Age & Opportunity Guidelines for Working with Older People in the Arts
A resource for Bealtaine Festival organisers and others involved in the arts and older people.
Guidelines
Arts Council Solo Practitioner Guidelines (PDF)
Guidelines for artists working in a solo capacity as practitioneers, facilitators or tutors with children and young people.
Guidelines
Guidelines for taking and using images of children and young people in the arts sector
Guidelines for arts organisations and artists working as arts practitioners, facilitators or tutors, on making, recording and using images of children and young people.
Guidelines
Garda Vetting and the Arts – An Overview (PDF)
An overview to Garda vetting and the arts in Ireland Author(s): Arthur Duignan.
Guidelines
The Arts & Health Handbook: a practical guide (PDF)
This handbook puts arts and health in context, and presents a practical guide to setting up and managing an arts project within health and social care settings in Ireland.
Guidelines
The Picture of Health (PDF)
A framework for the practice of arts in health settings.
Guidelines
Working Creatively with Older People: A practical guide
A practical guide for working creatively with older people.
Guidelines
Participatory Arts Practice in Healthcare Contexts
Guidelines for good practice for artists and healthcare professionals engaged in participatory arts practice in healthcare contexts in Ireland.
Policies & Strategies (36 results)
Policies & Strategies
PAINT Policy Brief: Bringing Arts Activities into Kidney Haemodialysis to Improve Patient Outcomes
The PAINT Policy Brief has been co-created by patients, families, researchers, healthcare and arts practitioners with an interest in or personal experience of kidney disease. The Policy Brief addresses the profound impact of haemodialysis on the mental health of patients and advocates for arts activities as a way of managing the emotional challenges and finding meaning and connection during treatment.
Policies & Strategies
Oireachtas Report on the Development of Local and Community Arts
The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media published a report on the Development of Local and Community Arts in July 2024. The report includes a number of significant recommendations in relation to Arts and Health following a public hearing and submissions from the sector.
Policies & Strategies
Health Services Healthy Ireland Implementation Plan 2023 – 2027
Strengthening partnership and community working is one of the strategic priority areas, and includes a partnership approach with Creative Ireland, the Arts Council, and Healthy Ireland in the Department of Health to identify and support key opportunities to strengthen arts and health in the HSE.
Policies & Strategies
Arts for Health Partnership Programme West Cork: Strategic Plan 2023-2028
The Arts for Health Partnership Programme provides year-round cultural and creative activities for residents of community hospitals, older people attending day care centres, and their family carers across West Cork.
Policies & Strategies
Stronger Together: The HSE Mental Health Promotion Plan 2022-2027
This five year plan includes action areas focused on promoting positive mental health across the population and among HSE staff. There is a specific action to strengthen the role of arts and creativity in the promotion of mental health and wellbeing within the HSE and HSE-funded agencies.
Policies & Strategies
Healthy Ireland Strategic Action Plan 2021–2025
Healthy Ireland is the national framework for action to improve the health and wellbeing of everyone living in Ireland. The Strategic Action Plan 2021-2025 includes priority focus areas for arts and culture.
Policies & Strategies
HSE Social Prescribing Framework
The HSE Social Prescribing Framework supports the development of social prescribing within the HSE. It sets out a common approach for the delivery of social prescribing across the organisation.
Policies & Strategies
Sláintecare Implementation Strategy & Action Plan 2021 – 2023
Sláintecare is the Government's ten-year programme to transform Ireland's health and social care services.
Policies & Strategies
Culture 2025: A National Cultural Policy Framework to 2025
Culture 2025 is a Policy Framework that defines the scope and sets the direction for Government policy in the whole cultural field.
Policies & Strategies
A Manifesto for Arts and Health Practice in Ireland
This Manifesto for Arts and Health was written in 2016 by a group of Arts and Health Co-ordinators who work across a range of healthcare settings in the Republic of Ireland.
Policies & Strategies
Paying the Artist: An Arts Council policy on the fair and equitable remuneration and contracting of artists
Within this Fair and Equitable Remuneration and Contracting Policy, the Arts Council articulates its position and expectations with regard to remuneration and contracting within the arts sector.
Policies & Strategies
WHO Europe Sector Brief: Intersectoral action: the arts, health and well-being
This sector brief is informed by the Health 2020 policy framework adopted by all Member States of the WHO European Region and the WHO Health Evidence Network synthesis report on the evidence base for arts and health interventions.
Policies & Strategies
Leading Collaborative Arts In Ireland: Create Strategy 2020 – 2025
Create publishes their 2020-2025 strategy at a time of significant global change and in the firm belief that by working together, artists and communities can purposefully explore how collaborative arts engage in distinct, relevant and powerful ways with the urgent social, cultural and political issues of our times.
Policies & Strategies
Making Great Art Work: Arts Council Three-Year Plan 2020-2022
The Arts Council's three-year plan 2020-2022 is more externally focused, engaging more with diverse communities across Ireland, placing equality and human rights at the centre of all activities and providing opportunities for artists and arts organisations to develop their skills and capacities in innovative and new ways across the digital realm and in cross-disciplinary practice.
Policies & Strategies
Arts Council Equality, Human Rights & Diversity Policy & Strategy
Developed in the context of Ireland’s contemporary diverse society and driven by the desire of the Arts Council to show leadership and bring about change in Ireland, this policy aims to ensure that everyone who lives in Ireland has the opportunity to engage with, and participate in the arts.
Policies & Strategies
NYCI National Youth Health Programme Strategic Plan 2018-2022
The National Youth Health Programme is a strategic partnership of The National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI), The Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DCYA) and the Health Service Executive (HSE).
Policies & Strategies
The National Positive Ageing Strategy
The National Positive Ageing Strategy is a commitment in the Programme for Government, outlining Ireland's vision for ageing and older people and the national goals and objectives required to promote positive ageing.
Policies & Strategies
Creative Ireland Programme 2017-2022
Clár Éire Ildánach / Creative Ireland is the Government’s Legacy Programme for Ireland 2016 – a five-year initiative, from 2017 to 2022, which places creativity at the centre of public policy.
Policies & Strategies
Arts for Health Partnership Programme West Cork Strategy 2017-2020
Arts for Health is a partnership programme based in West Cork implementing a managed arts programme for older people in healthcare settings, embedded into the community hospitals and day care services.
Policies & Strategies
NSW Health and the Arts Framework (AUS)
This Framework - which reflects the National Arts and Health Framework and the NSW Arts and Cultural Policy Framework (Create in NSW) - enables the NSW Health system to maximise the benefits of integrating the arts into the design and delivery of health services, and health messaging.
Policies & Strategies
Arts, Health and Well-Being across the Military Continuum: White Paper and Framing a National Plan for Action
The first White Paper of the National Initiative for Arts & Health in the Military (US) recommends collective actions to help increase access to the arts as tools for healing and wellness for all military service men and women, medical staff, veterans, their families, and caregivers.
Policies & Strategies
Making Great Art Work: Arts Council Strategy (2016–2025)
The Arts Council strategy, Making Great Art Work, sets out its plan for leading the development of the arts in Ireland from 2016-2025, prioritising the artist and public engagement, and outlining a range of actions which the agency will take to deliver on its vision.
Policies & Strategies
The Irish National Dementia Strategy
This strategy sets out to improve the lives of people with dementia in Ireland.
Policies & Strategies
National Arts and Health Framework (Aus)
This national framework has been developed to enhance the profile of arts and health in Australia and to promote greater integration of arts and health practice and approaches.
Policies & Strategies
Arts for Health Partnership Programme West Cork Strategy 2013 – 2016 flyer
A flyer detailing the strategy of Arts for Health, a managed arts programme for older people in healthcare settings, embedded into the community hospitals and day care services in West Cork.
Policies & Strategies
Arts for Health Partnership Programme West Cork Strategy 2013 – 2016
The strategy of Arts for Health, a managed arts programme for older people in healthcare settings, embedded into the community hospitals and day care services.
Policies & Strategies
A Charter for Arts Health and Wellbeing
This Charter for Arts, Health and Wellbeing is the result of conversations across the nine regions of England.
Policies & Strategies
Manifesto Part 2
This second manifesto promotes action and makes clear the vision of those interested in the relationship between the arts and society in the North of England.
Policies & Strategies
Manifesto Part 1
This manifesto promotes action and makes clear the vision of those interested in the relationship between the arts and society in the North of England.
Policies & Strategies
Healthy Ireland: A framework for improved health and wellbeing 2013-2025
Healthy Ireland is a national Framework for action to improve the health and wellbeing of the population of Ireland over the coming generation.
Policies & Strategies
A Prospectus for Arts & Health Arts Council England (PDF)
This prospectus celebrates and promotes the benefits of the arts in improving everyone's wellbeing, health and healthcare, and its role in supporting those who work in and with the health service.
Policies & Strategies
Trust In Care (PDF)
Policy for health service employers on upholding the dignity and welfare of patients/clients and the procedures for managing allegations of abuse against staff members.
Policies & Strategies
A Vision for Change (PDF)
This report proposes a framework for mental health policy in Ireland.
Policies & Strategies
HE+ART: A Participatory Arts and Health Strategy for Sligo 2007—2012 (PDF)
Sligo County Council's participatory arts and health strategy.
Policies & Strategies
Making Inroads: Arts and Health Strategy 2009-2011 (PDF)
Kildare County Council's arts and health strategy.
Policies & Strategies
Arts and Health: Policy and Strategy (PDF)
An arts and health policy and strategy developed by the Arts Council.
Research & Evaluation (117 results)
Research & Evaluation
A Multimethod International Mapping Exercise of Arts Interventions in Renal Units: The PAINT Project
The aim of the PAINT project was to undertake an international mapping exercise to identify the current provision of arts programmes in kidney centres for people living with kidney disease. The arts activities being offered globally and experiences of renal healthcare staff who provide activities in their units are encouraging in terms of arts in healthcare.
Research & Evaluation
Arts Engagement as a Health Behavior: An Opportunity to Address Mental Health Inequities
This U.S. study uses an applied social ecological model of health, showing how arts engagement can support mental health and reduce mental health inequities at the individual, interpersonal, community, policy, and cultural levels.
Research & Evaluation
The impact of social prescribing on health service use and costs: Examples of local evaluations in practice
This report from the National Academy for Social Prescribing in the UK summarises the analysis of social prescribing evaluation data from nine local health systems across England. The findings indicate that social prescribing can substantially reduce pressure on the NHS, including through reduced GP appointments, reduced hospital admissions and reduced A&E visits.
Research & Evaluation
Sites of Significance
Sites of Significance is a research report exploring pathways to engagement and work in dance experienced by dance artists and facilitators who live and / or work within territorial border areas of Cavan and Fermanagh-Omagh Council areas. One of the report recommendations is for greater recognition and resourcing by local authorities of local dance facilitators for their contribution to social and health-based outcomes.
Research & Evaluation
What does an arts & health organisation do?
There is currently a great deal of momentum in arts and health practice, research and advocacy around the world. To understand what is driving this momentum and how arts and health organisations and practitioners are operating in creating and/or benefitting from that momentum, this report gathers insights from people working in some of the world’s most innovative arts and health organisations. One of the organisations featured is Réalta, Ireland's national resource organisation for arts and health.
Research & Evaluation
Understanding the Potential of Clinical-Creative Partnerships to Improve Dementia Care
This synthesis report explores the potential of clinical-creative partnerships to enhance dementia care. Spearheaded by Gráinne Hope, Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health at GBHI and Director of Music & Health Ireland, the report is informed by a series of cross-disciplinary roundtable discussions. The report identifies key opportunities and makes a set of recommendations to bridge gaps in dementia care across sectors.
Research & Evaluation
Art and the Healing Environment
Curator Vivienne Reiss was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to visit Denmark, Sweden and Japan and explore how healthcare buildings in these countries enhance health and wellbeing, and the contribution of art to the healing environment. Her findings illustrate the multi-faceted role of art and include 13 case studies in general, paediatric and psychiatric hospitals.
Research & Evaluation
Arts and Health Evaluation: Navigating the Landscape
This guide is designed to support anyone working in arts and health to navigate the landscape of evaluation. Published by the Social Biobehavioural Research Group at UCL, a WHO Collaborating Centre for Arts and Health, it includes a comprehensive mapping of what arts and health evaluation frameworks and toolkits exist, supporting you to make choices regarding which resources are the most suitable for your evaluation.
Research & Evaluation
Orchestras in Healthcare 2023
Orchestras in Healthcare #2 explores the contribution that orchestras (including those integrated in opera companies) currently make in the public health sector in the UK. This report presents findings from the second UK-wide Orchestras in Healthcare survey (the first survey was undertaken in 2020).
Research & Evaluation
Creative Health Review: How Policy Can Embrace Creative Health
The Creative Health Review led by The National Centre for Creative Health (NCCH) and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing (APPG AHW) in the UK highlights the potential for creative health to help tackle pressing issues in health and social care and more widely, including health inequalities and the additional challenges we face as we recover from Covid-19.
Research & Evaluation
WHO expert meeting on prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases: learning from the arts
This report summarizes the proceedings of an expert meeting held on 15–16 December 2022 in Budapest, Hungary, on the value of arts interventions for health, focusing on initiatives for mainstreaming arts into prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in the WHO European Region.
Research & Evaluation
Creative Carers Report: Arts for Health Partnership, West Cork
In 2022, the Arts for Health Partnership developed and delivered Creative Carers, a participatory arts programme strand for and with carers in West Cork. This report explores the research and development phase, programme strands and delivery, and quantitative and qualitative outcomes.
Research & Evaluation
An Evaluation of Tea Chats & Tunes Music Residency
Tea, Chats & Tunes is a collaborative partnership aimed at connecting residents in nursing homes with their families through the power of music. The programme is delivered by Music & Health Ireland. This evaluation highlights the importance of its person-centred approach in strengthening social connections and enhancing the wellbeing of residents.
Research & Evaluation
An Evaluation of Music in Health Workshops Delivered by Music & Health Ireland
This evaluation report sheds light on the impact of staff workshops facilitated as part of the Musicians-On-Call programme in 2022. The report focuses on the ‘Introduction to Music in Healthcare for Healthcare Staff’, exploring the possibilities of supporting staff to learn creative approaches used by professionally trained healthcare musicians to help residents in engaging purposefully with music in their daily care roles.
Research & Evaluation
Creative activity in the ageing population: Findings from Wave 6 of The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing
Older adults in Ireland who participate in arts, creative and cultural activities report higher quality of life and lower levels of depression, stress, worry and loneliness, according to this report from the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) at Trinity College Dublin.
Research & Evaluation
The Impact of Arts and Cultural Engagement on Population Health
This report summarises findings from a series of longitudinal studies conducted between 2017 and 2022 that examined the relationship between arts and cultural engagement and health and wellbeing outcomes using UK and US cohort studies.
Research & Evaluation
The arts in public health policy: progress and opportunities
WHO has called for governments to take an intersectoral approach to realise the potential of the arts for public health. To explore what global progress is being made towards this aim, this paper presents examples of arts and health policy development from diverse government areas: health, arts, local governments, and cross government.
Research & Evaluation
CultureForHealth Report: Culture’s contribution to health and well-being
The CultureForHealth Report is a scoping review of existing evidence on the positive effect of arts and cultural activities on health and wellbeing. The report includes policy recommendations for stakeholders in the cultural, health and social sectors, and decision makers at local, national and European level.
Research & Evaluation
Mapping Arts and Health Across the Midlands
This research report maps the landscape of arts and health practice and provision across the Midlands. The report teases out a complex ecosystem of people, agencies, resources, policies and understandings in order to answer the key question: ‘how can we collaborate better?’
Research & Evaluation
Making Modern Art Accessible: An Outcome Report on the IMMA Art & Ageing Programme
The Irish Museum of Modern Art launched Art & Ageing, an inclusive art programme, in autumn 2020 to help older adults and people living with dementia to combat the social side effects of the global pandemic. This report contains a programme overview, key findings and qualitative feedback collected from stakeholders.
Research & Evaluation
Practising Well: Conversations & Support Menu
The working conditions for creative practitioners in the participatory arts sector are explored in Nicola Naismith’s research. Participants bring increasingly complex and vulnerable positions into participatory arts opportunities, which in turn leads to an intensification and diversification of experience, for both participant and creative practitioner. This report focuses on practical ways to achieve best and sustainable practice.
Research & Evaluation
Discoveries in Distanced Arts: The work, wonder, and wear of Entelechy Arts’ Staying Connected Programmes – Practice Report
This practice report, based on research led by Entelechy Arts and Queen Mary University of London, shares learning on how to develop remote arts programmes for older adults.
Research & Evaluation
Arts and Creativity in Later Life: Implications for Health and Wellbeing in Older Adults. A Systematic Evidence Review.
This report provides an overview of a systematic evidence review to develop a better understanding of what the evidence tells us about the role arts and creativity plays in older people’s health and wellbeing.
Research & Evaluation
Creative activity in the ageing population
This report presents findings on creative activity participation among older adults in Ireland using data from The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) at Trinity College Dublin, a nationally representative study of community dwelling adults aged 50 years or older in Ireland.
Research & Evaluation
Evaluation of Care Hubs of Arts and Creative Excellence Initiative
The Care Hubs of Arts Excellence are an initiative of Age & Opportunity’s Arts Programme. This independent evaluation focuses on the process of implementing the Care Hubs and the impact of the initiative, including the creation of new knowledge of the arts in care settings for older people.
Research & Evaluation
Social Return on Investment study of the Helium Arts Creative Health Hub Programme
Helium Arts is the national children's arts and health organisation. This Social Return on Investment study covers Helium's work over a two-year period (2019 - 2020). The research found that the social value of Helium's work is worth almost twice as much as the funding it receives based on the outcomes achieved for stakeholders.
Research & Evaluation
Infographic: Mapping Arts and Health Activity in Ireland in 2019
Key findings from the mapping report displayed in infographic form. This research, commissioned by Arts and Health Co-ordinators Ireland (AHCI) and carried out by Dr. Francesca Farina, measures activity across a range of healthcare contexts, from hospitals and day care centres, to community settings and health promotion.
Research & Evaluation
Mapping Arts and Health Activity in Ireland in 2019
This mapping report, commissioned by Arts and Health Co-ordinators Ireland (AHCI), measures the level and nature of Arts and Health activity in the Republic of Ireland in 2019.
Research & Evaluation
Choirs in Crisis – Soundbites of Singing through the first year of COVID-19
As an independent adjunct to an online survey investigating singing group leaders’ experiences of online singing sessions during the COVID-19 pandemic, undertaken by the Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health, these five cases by Angus McLewin Associates capture some of the ways that community singing groups and choirs managed to keep singing through the first year of COVID-19, from February 2020 to March 2021.
Research & Evaluation
Vocal Beats: External Evaluation Report 2020
Vocal Beats is a hospital-ward-based music project led by rb&hArts for children and young people aged 0-25 years old at Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust.
Research & Evaluation
Discover/Recover Theatre Project: “A Face in the Crowd”: A Social Impact Study
The Discover/Recover Theatre Project is a preventative mental health intervention led by Wexford Mental Health Association that seeks to increase mental health literacy and reduce stigma through education and awareness-raising.
Research & Evaluation
Life Worth Living: The Report of the Arts and Culture Recovery Taskforce
An Arts and Culture Recovery Taskforce was appointed in September 2020 to prepare a report for the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media including a set of recommendations on how best the arts and culture sector can adapt and recover from the unprecedented damage arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Research & Evaluation
Create Ireland Collaborative Arts Resource Pack
At the Create Networking Day (9 December 2020), delegates came together in a facilitated interactive session entitled “Connect” which offered a chance to meet, talk, share, and strategise together.
Research & Evaluation
Creative Enquiry: Artist Residency and Older People Engagement Project
Creative Enquiry - Arts and Older People is an investigative collaborative venture that creatively explores fresh approaches to arts engagement with older people and advances best practice models.
Research & Evaluation
Arts & Health Hub: COVID-19 Artist Impact Report
The Arts & Health Hub (UK) released its COVID-19 Impact Report in July 2020 examining how the pandemic has affected artists in the arts & health sector.
Research & Evaluation
Employment and Economic Impact Assessment of Covid-19 on the Arts Sector in Ireland
EY were commissioned by the Arts Council in May 2020 to support the work of the COVID-19 Arts Council Advisory Group.
Research & Evaluation
A response to the Covid-19 crisis for the Arts in Ireland: Report of the Expert Advisory Group to the Arts Council
A report by the Expert Advisory Group established by the Arts Council to address the Covid-19 crisis in the arts sector, published in June 2020.
Research & Evaluation
An assessment of the scope and nature of arts and health practice in Ireland
This study aims to assess the nature and scope of arts and health practice in Ireland with a view to informing a joint framework between the Health Service Executive (HSE) and the Arts Council of Ireland.
Research & Evaluation
WHO Report: What is the evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and well-being? A scoping review
The first-ever report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on the evidence base for arts and health interventions.
Research & Evaluation
Tallaght University Hospital Arts and Health Programme: 4 Year Review
This four-year review of the National Centre for Arts and Health at Tallaght University Hospital brings together accumulated reports from 2015 to 2018 and covers three key areas of programming: participative arts, receptive arts and creative arts therapies.
Research & Evaluation
Creating Healthy Communities through Cross-sector Collaboration
This white paper by the University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine and ArtPlace America frames the value of arts and culture for advancing health and wellbeing in communities, and offers examples of impactful cross-sector collaborations that engage arts and culture to address five critical public health issues: collective trauma, racism, social isolation and exclusion, mental health, and chronic disease.
Research & Evaluation
An evaluation of the WHAT Arts Programme in the Renal Dialysis Unit at UHW – Executive Summary
Waterford Healing Arts Trust has been running an arts programme in the Renal Dialysis Unit at University Hospital Waterford since 2007.
Research & Evaluation
Museums as Spaces for Wellbeing
A Second Report from the National Alliance for Museums, Health and Wellbeing in England explores in greater depth the development of the museums, health and wellbeing sector.
Research & Evaluation
Calm and Collected: Museums and galleries: the UK’s untapped wellbeing resource?
The results of two stages of research undertaken by Art Fund – a UK-wide representative survey of over 2,500 adults, and a qualitative social study – suggest that engaging with art collections more frequently can help improve our wellbeing.
Research & Evaluation
Artists Practising Well
Artists Practising Well is a research report by Nicola Naismith, focusing on the topic of affective support for creative practitioners working in participatory arts in health and wellbeing.
Research & Evaluation
Dance and Health Research Project Report
The aim of this research is to create a best practice model of dance and health continuing professional development (CPD) and a dynamic, interdisciplinary course of study for dancers who are engaged in facilitating dance across a range of dance genres within healthcare contexts in Ireland.
Research & Evaluation
Sing while you work: the wellbeing benefits of workplace choirs
The first study of workplace choirs in Ireland and one of very few studies internationally to explore the health and wellbeing benefits of choirs for Health Service Staff.
Research & Evaluation
Arts and culture in health and wellbeing and in the criminal justice system: A summary of evidence
An assessment of the current evidence base around the place of arts and culture in health and wellbeing and in the criminal justice system by the Arts Council England.
Research & Evaluation
Live Music in Care: The Impact of Music Interventions for People Living and Working in Care Home Settings
Live Music Now in partnership with MHA (Methodist Homes), the Orders of St John Care Trust and Winchester University led an enquiry to explore whether weekly music sessions, provided for staff and residents in care homes, support the care home environment to be a place where residents and staff are happy to live and work.
Research & Evaluation
Art Thou Well? Towards Creative Devolution of Mental Health in Greater Manchester
This report, written in the context of the Devolution deal of 2014, explores the myriad roles the arts could, and do, play in the service of mental health in Greater Manchester (GM).
Research & Evaluation
Exploring the theoretical foundations of visual art programmes for people living with dementia
This paper explores how and why visual art interventions in dementia care influence changes in outcomes.
Research & Evaluation
Strength in Networks (UK)
A comparative analysis of six creative interventions designed for people diagnosed with dementia across England and Wales.
Research & Evaluation
Narratives of health and illness: Arts-based research capturing the lived experience of dementia
This paper presents three artists’ residencies in a geriatric medicine unit in a teaching hospital.
Research & Evaluation
Creative Health: The Arts for Health and Wellbeing
An inquiry into practice and research in the arts in health and social care by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing in the UK. This two-year inquiry (2015-2017) was conducted with a view to making recommendations to improve policy and practice.
Research & Evaluation
Arts for Health and Wellbeing: An evaluation framework
This document provides guidance on appropriate ways of documenting the impacts of arts for health and wellbeing, whether through small scale project evaluations or large scale research studies.
Research & Evaluation
The Impact of Arts Activity on Nursing Staff Well-Being: An Intervention in the Workplace
Over 59 million workers are employed in the healthcare sector globally, with a daily risk of being exposed to a complex variety of health and safety hazards.
Research & Evaluation
The Role of the Modern Curator in Hospital
This paper explores the role of the curator in the modern hospital through an international qualitative study of ten professionals working as arts managers / curators in English speaking hospitals.
Research & Evaluation
The Bare Necessities of Life – Reactions to Kids’ Classics Live Music in a Children’s Hospital in Ireland
An independent evaluation documenting the evidence of the impact of Kids’ Classics music activities in Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Crumlin.
Research & Evaluation
Aesthetic deprivation: the role of aesthetics for older patients in hospital (PhD thesis)
This thesis was submitted by Hilary Moss towards the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Department of Medical Gerontology, School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin in 2014.
Research & Evaluation
A review of the Social Impacts of Culture and Sport (UK)
This research reviews the current evidence base on the social impacts of sport and culture.
Research & Evaluation
Exploring the Longitudinal Relationship Between Arts Engagement and Health
This report reveals that engaging with the arts and culture generally has a positive long-term effect on health and wellbeing.
Research & Evaluation
Hospitalization and Aesthetic Health in Older Adults
This study assesses the impact of hospitalization on arts engagement among older people and perceptions of whether hospitals are aesthetically deprived environments.
Research & Evaluation
Wellbeing in four policy areas: Report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Wellbeing Economics
Through the lens of four specific policy areas, this UK inquiry sets out to demonstrate that national wellbeing evidence should be used to inform policy.
Research & Evaluation
Restoring the Balance: the effect of arts participation on wellbeing and health
A collection of interviews conducted between May and July 2009.
Research & Evaluation
Aesthetic Deprivation: the role of the arts for older people in hospital (PhD Summary)
A summary of a PhD conducted at Trinity College Dublin School of Medicine under the supervision of Prof Des O’Neill and Dr Claire Donnellan.
Research & Evaluation
Confidentiality, Consent and Decision Making in Arts and Health Participatory Art Practice
An investigation exploring tensions that arise in confidentiality, decision making and consent within an arts and health context.
Research & Evaluation
Arts, Health and Wellbeing Beyond the Millennium: How far have we come and where do we want to go?
This UK report provides a review of the evidence for the benefits of the arts to health, as well as the policy context of commissioning arts and health initiatives.
Research & Evaluation
Healthy Attendance?
A study that looks at the impact of cultural engagement and sports participation on health and satisfaction with life in Scotland.
Research & Evaluation
The aesthetic and cultural pursuits of patients with stroke
This study aimed to obtain insights into people affected by stroke about the profile of art and aesthetic activities in their lives and the influence of stroke on these aspects.
Research & Evaluation
The aesthetic and cultural interests of patients attending an acute hospital – a phenomenological study
This qualitative study explores the aesthetic and cultural pursuits of older patients in hospital.
Research & Evaluation
Synaesthesia
This is an exploratory document which teases out some of the conditions needed for a multi-disciplinary collaborative approach to art making in a mental health setting.
Research & Evaluation
Arts Ability Programme: Arts and Health or Arts and Disability or both?
A record of Wexford County Council’s considered position on its relationship to Arts and Health and Arts and Disability in relation to the Arts Ability programme.
Research & Evaluation
RNCM Medical Notes Project at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital
A report on the outcomes of the Medical Notes Project for children, families, musicians and staff at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital.
Research & Evaluation
REFLECT Lab Co-mentoring: North West Evaluation
An evaluation of REFLECT Lab, a professional development opportunity led by Helium Arts for artists and healthcare professionals working with children in the North West.
Research & Evaluation
Azure: Exploring greater inclusion of people with dementia in museums and galleries in Ireland
A pilot evaluation of the Azure project at the Butler Gallery, Kilkenny.
Research & Evaluation
New Model Visual Arts Organisations and Social Engagement
Four intensive organisational case studies characterise and compare distinctive approaches to socially engaged visual arts practice in the UK.
Research & Evaluation
Singing and Mental Health
A UK evidence-based guide on the benefits of group singing for mental health and wellbeing.
Research & Evaluation
Beyond Diagnosis – the transformative potential of the arts in mental health recovery
Arts + Minds commissioned Lydia Sapouna to investigate the impact and potential of the arts within mental health care.
Research & Evaluation
Art Programme in the Dialysis Unit, Tallaght Hospital, 2011-2012
A report on the art programme in the Dialysis Unit of Tallaght Hospital.
Research & Evaluation
Art for Health: A review of good practice in community-based arts projects and interventions which impact on health and wellbeing
A UK review, produced in 1999, on the nature of arts for health initiatives and recommendations for good practice.
Research & Evaluation
MUSIC IN HEALTHCARE PROJECT: EVALUATION REPORT PHASE TWO
A report of the second phase of the evaluation of the Music in Healthcare Project, a partnership between Music Network and the Midland Health Board.
Research & Evaluation
MUSIC IN HEALTHCARE PROJECT: EVALUATION REPORT (PDF)
A report of the first phase of the evaluation of the Music in Healthcare Project: a partnership between Music Network and the Midland Health Board.
Research & Evaluation
MUSIC IN HEALTHCARE PROJECT: PHASE 3 INTERIM EVALUATION REPORT (PDF)
An evaluation report of the first year of Phase 3 of the Music in Healthcare programme: a partnership between Music Network and the Midland Health Board.
Research & Evaluation
A Study of the Effects of the Visual and Performing Arts in Healthcare
The research explores whether visual and performing arts could have an effect on psychological, physiological and biological outcomes of clinical significance.
Research & Evaluation
Arts in health: a review of the medical literature
This review of medical literature explores the relationship of the arts and humanities to healthcare, and the influence and effects of the arts on health.
Research & Evaluation
Evaluation of the Music in Healthcare Project 2000 – 2004
An evaluation of the Music in Healthcare Project: a partnership between Music Network and the Midland Health Board.
Research & Evaluation
Age & Opportunity Evaluation Arts in Care Settings Project
This report summarises the findings of an evaluation of the Arts in Care Settings Project.
Research & Evaluation
Music in Healthcare / Mental Health
An evaluation of the participative music programme designed by Music Network as part of Cork 2005 – European Capital of Culture.
Research & Evaluation
Mind Where You Look – Research Summary
A comparative study between a hospital and a gallery as sites for viewing art.
Research & Evaluation
GENNING UP: A Research Paper for Blue Drum on Community-based Arts in Health (DOC)
A research paper for Blue Drum on community-based arts in health.
Research & Evaluation
Dreams Project
A research report assessing the value of participation by patients, staff and community members in the Dreams Arts and Health visual art project in the Mater Hospital, Belfast.
Research & Evaluation
Report of the Review of Arts and Health Working Group
A report setting out the findings and recommendations of the Review of Arts and Health Working Group, which was set up by Harry Cayton, the National Director for Patient and the Public, to support him in advising the Department of Health on its role in relation to arts and health (UK).
Research & Evaluation
Towards Transformation: Exploring the impact of culture, creativity and the arts on health and wellbeing (PDF)
Exploring the impact of culture, creativity and the arts on health and wellbeing.
Research & Evaluation
Mental Health, Social Inclusion and Arts: developing the evidence base (PDF)
A research study that aimed to identify appropriate indicators and measures of mental health and social inclusion outcomes, and to develop and implement an evaluation framework based on those indicators and measures.
Research & Evaluation
Conversations in Colour (PDF)
Evaluation of an Arts for Health Partnership Programme 2005/6, West Cork.
Research & Evaluation
A Cure for the Soul? The benefit of live music in the General Hospital (PDF)
An evaluation of the benefit of live music performance in the Adelaide and Meath Incorporating the National Children's Hospital.
Research & Evaluation
The Benefit of Creative Writing for Patients in a Cardiac Rehabilitation Department (PDF)
An evaluation of the benefit of creative writing for patients in the Cardiac Rehabilitation Unit of Adelaide and Meath Incorporating the National Children's Hospital.
Research & Evaluation
The Benefits of Therapeutic Art Sessions in a Renal Dialysis Unit (PDF)
An evaluation of the benefits of therapeutic art sessions in the Renal Dialysis Unit of Adelaide and Meath Incorporating the National Children's Hospital.
Research & Evaluation
Invest to Save: Arts in Health Evaluation (PDF)
An evaluation exploring the impact of creativity, culture and the arts on health and wellbeing.
Research & Evaluation
Crossing the line (PDF)
An evaluation of a Musician in Residence programme in mental health settings, Waterford City.
Research & Evaluation
The ‘Open Window’ Study (PDF)
A PHD research study evaluating the psychological effect of 'Open Window' and exploring the experiences of people undergoing stem cell or bone marrow transplant for the treatment of haematological malignancies.
Research & Evaluation
Ceol le Chéile-Music Together Evaluation (PDF)
An evaluation of the participatory music programme delivered by Cork Arts and Health Programme, HSE South.
Research & Evaluation
An evaluation: The Bealtaine Festival (PDF)
This evaluation assesses the contribution of the Bealtaine festival, celebrating creativity in older age, to promoting the participation of older people in the arts in Ireland, and to improving the health and well-being of the people who participate.
Research & Evaluation
Hospital arts co-ordinators:an accidental profession? (PDF)
Research focusing on hospital based arts co-ordinators and their views on the challenges posed by their work.
Research & Evaluation
Invest to Save: Arts in Health — Reflections on a 3-year period of research and development in the North West of England (PDF)
A reflective account of a three-year mixed-methodological research and development project exploring creativity, culture and the arts on public health, taking national development in the field into account.
Research & Evaluation
Report on Interdisciplinary Arts in Health Project 2009 (PDF)
A report on arts in health based workshops involving an interprofessional engagement amongst arts and health students and mental health service users.
Research & Evaluation
What training do artists need to work in healthcare settings? (PDF)
Research that led to the development of a training course for artists working in health settings.
Research & Evaluation
Evaluation of Music in Renal Dialysis Programme 2009/2010 (PDF)
An evaluation of a participatory music programme in the Renal Dialysis Unit of Waterford Regional Hospital.
Research & Evaluation
Well into older age — Age & Opportunity and the evidence (PDF)
What research says about the value of promoting participation of older people.
Research & Evaluation
‘Creative Ageing’ A Practical Exploration of the Arts in the Healthcare of Older People (PDF)
A report that considers how arts-based activities can be deployed to complement traditional programmes of healthcare to improve the well being of older people with dementia.
Research & Evaluation
An Independent Evaluation of a Composer in Residence Report AMNCH 2010
An evaluation of a Composer in Residence project in the Stroke Unit of the Adelaide and Meath incorporating the National Children's Hospital (now Tallaght University Hospital).
Research & Evaluation
Helium Puppet Portal Project Evaluation (Master) (PDF)
An independent evaluation of a puppetry and technology project across four hospital environments.
Research & Evaluation
Helium Puppet Portal Project Evaluation (Summary) (PDF)
An independent evaluation of a puppetry and technology project across four hospital environments.
Research & Evaluation
An interim evaluation of the ‘Arts for Well-being’ social prescribing scheme in County Durham
This review considers firstly the policy context for social prescribing, the development of arts on prescription schemes, and issues for evaluation of this field of work.
Research & Evaluation
An Evidence Review of the Impact of Participatory Arts on Older People (PDF)
A review that verifies the positive impact participatory arts can have on the health and wellbeing of older people.
Research & Evaluation
Prescribed Culture: Summary of Research Findings
A summary of research findings following a prescribed culture project in the south of Sweden.
Research & Evaluation
Be Creative Be Well: arts, wellbeing and local communities, an evaluation (PDF)
A report that describes and evaluates the Be Creative Be Well project and the key role it has played within the integrated, community-led Well London programme.
Articles & Documentation (82 results)
Articles & Documentation
Reflecting on arts and health practice by Luci Kershaw
Luci Kershaw is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work explores health topics and themes, as well as more traditional practice within the area of arts and health. Luci was awarded the artsandhealth.ie Emerging Artist Bursary in 2024 and has spent her time exploring how to embrace more collaborative approaches to sharing people’s stories through sound and film.
Articles & Documentation
Art By Their Side
Irish Hospice Foundation’s Arts and Cultural Engagement programme embarked on a yearlong residency project in 2023 titled “Artists in Residence in Service to People at End of Life”. Art By Their Side features interviews with participants and showcases the creative work that emerged from the residencies.
Articles & Documentation
Experience 2023: Reflection by Noelle Brown
Experience 2023: An Introduction to Arts, Health and the Older Person was a learning programme aimed at professional arts practitioners with an interest in working with older people in a health context. Noelle Brown reflects on some of the presentations and themes that spoke to her personally, and the learnings that she as an artist took from the day.
Articles & Documentation
Creative Brain Week: Knowledge Making
This publication brings together the lived experience and insights shared during Creative Brain Week, an annual exploration of how brain science and creativity connect to seed new ideas in social development, culture, wellbeing, and physical, mental and brain health across the life cycle and across society.
Articles & Documentation
Let’s Pause – A reflection by artist Catarina Araújo
Visual artist Catarina Araújo designed her first arts and health project with mental health professionals in Cork to explore their experiences of Covid-19. The need for time and space to pause reverberated throughout the project and has informed Catarina’s reflection, funded by the artsandhealth.ie emerging artist bursary 2023.
Articles & Documentation
Response to Experience: Arts, Health and Older People 2022
Experience: An Introduction to Arts, Health and Older People was a three-day online learning programme in 2022 aimed at professional arts practitioners with an interest in working with older people in a health and/or community context.
Articles & Documentation
Wherever you go: Learnings from an emerging arts and health practice by Áine Rose Connell
Áine Rose Connell, a visual artist and poet, brings her background as a Speech and Language Therapist and her experience of collaborative poetry making to bear in Wherever you go, a written exploration of her emerging arts and health practice.
Articles & Documentation
The Art of being Healthy and Well: Symposium Report
The all-of-government Creative Ireland Programme, Healthy Ireland, the Health Service Executive and the Arts Council co-hosted a national symposium in 2022 on the positive benefits of creativity and the arts to health and wellbeing at the Royal College of Physicians in Dublin.
Articles & Documentation
Reading between the lines
Reading between the lines is a reflective report by Mary Grehan documenting a learning programme for artists called Experience: An Introduction to Arts, Health and Older People.
Articles & Documentation
Material Language: Reflections on an arts and health practice by Ciara Harrison
Arts and health practice often involves engaging with people who are far from home and familiar spaces. How does an artist create a sense of space and place, of warmth and trust, in unfamiliar territory?
Articles & Documentation
THE SINGING BODY: Personal Reflections on an Arts & Health Practice by Sadhbh O’Sullivan
Songwriter and musician Sadhbh O'Sullivan was awarded an artsandhealth.ie artist bursary in 2021 to reflect on her approach to a holistic music and health practice.
Articles & Documentation
Other People’s Practices: And More Besides
Other People’s Practices brings artists and health service users of the Central Mental Hospital together to collaborate on projects. Founder and Director John Conway was awarded the artsandhealth.ie documentation bursary in 2019 to create a publication about the programme.
Articles & Documentation
Dance and Health: Reflections on Empowerment and Transformation by Helga Deasy
Dance artist and choreographer Helga Deasy was awarded an artsandhealth.ie artist bursary in 2020 to reflect on and interrogate her model for an empowering dance practice, specifically its applicability to her experience of working as a dancer in hospitals and care homes.
Articles & Documentation
Museum of Song Postal Project Songbook
The Museum of Song Postal Project is a song collecting project by artists Tess Leak and Sharon Whooley.
Articles & Documentation
Report on a conversation: Evaluating remote or online creative activities during the pandemic
This report uncovers findings from a curated online conversation in September 2020 exploring the evaluation of creative activities for arts, health and wellbeing delivered remotely or online during COVID-19.
Articles & Documentation
Perspectives on Practice: The Artist in the Suit
Mary Grehan reflects on the challenge of maintaining an artistic practice while pursuing a career as an arts manager in healthcare.
Articles & Documentation
WHO/Europe Public Health Panorama: Arts and health: creative solutions to complex challenges
Public Health Panorama is a peer-reviewed, bilingual (English–Russian), open-access journal published by the WHO Regional Office for Europe.
Articles & Documentation
Menu of Poems 2019
Menu of Poems is an annual initiative in celebration of Poetry Day Ireland.
Articles & Documentation
Encounters: Menu of Poems 2018
In celebration of Poetry Day Ireland 2018, 'Encounters' was distributed throughout hospitals and healthcare settings in Ireland as part of the annual 'Menu of Poems' initiative.
Articles & Documentation
The arts and dementia: Emerging directions for theory, research and practice
An editorial outlining current research in the area of arts and dementia featured in a special issue of 'Dementia' dedicated to the Arts and Dementia.
Articles & Documentation
Waterford Healing Arts Trust Artist in Residence 2017: Ciara Harrison
This report explores Ciara Harrison's work as 2017 Artist in Residence with Waterford Healing Arts Trust.
Articles & Documentation
Artistic Encounters in the Interstice of a Healthcare Workplace
A reflective review of the TODAY photography project in St Finbarr’s Hospital Campus in Cork City by artist Colette Lewis.
Articles & Documentation
Waterford Healing Arts Trust Artist in Residence 2016: Caroline Schofield
This report explores Caroline Schofield's work as 2016 Artist in Residence with Waterford Healing Arts Trust.
Articles & Documentation
Arts and Health: A New Paradigm
This position paper presents a new paradigm about the intrinsic structure and nature of arts and health practice.
Articles & Documentation
Soul Food: Menu of Poems 2016
In celebration of Poetry Day Ireland (28 April 2016), Soul Food is intended for distribution throughout hospitals and healthcare settings in Ireland.
Articles & Documentation
A Love Filled Slap
As part of the 1916 East Rising commemorations in Ireland, Clive Parkinson was invited to share the development and context to the Manifesto for Arts & Health at the inaugural Arts and Health Check Up Check In event.
Articles & Documentation
Proclaiming Arts and Health Manifestoes in 2016
Pat Cooke's paper from the inaugural Arts and Health Check Up Check In which took place in January 2016.
Articles & Documentation
Collective Imagining: Denis Roche discusses ‘Panchaea: In Search of an Equal Utopia and a Willing Suspension of Disbelief’
Denis Roche reflects on this socially engaged project made in collaboration with Brian Maguire, Emma Finucane and people using the mental health services in Co. Carlow (2011-2013).
Articles & Documentation
Body Conscious
Silver Strands was an interdisciplinary, collaborative project that evolved from a series of drama workshops in a residential mental health setting in West Cork, supported by West Cork Mental Health Services.
Articles & Documentation
Flow – Menu of Poems 2015
In celebration of Poetry Day Ireland (7 May 2015), Flow is intended for distribution throughout hospitals and healthcare settings in Ireland.
Articles & Documentation
Taking Flight – Menu of Poems
This Menu of Poems, on the theme of ‘taking flight’ is intended for distribution throughout a range of healthcare settings in Ireland in 2014.
Articles & Documentation
National Centre for Arts & Health Annual Report 2013
A report on the National Centre for Arts & Health's work in 2013.
Articles & Documentation
The art of medicine: Aesthetic deprivation in clinical settings
A peer reviewed perspective on aesthetic deprivation in clinical settings.
Articles & Documentation
Rosie Goan reflects on Festivals and Collaborative Practice
For Create News: 16 Rosie Goan reflects on the growing international trend towards the presentation of projects rooted in arts and health practice at festivals.
Articles & Documentation
Unfolding Time
Unfolding Time comprises a series of poems and stories by patients from the Dialysis Unit at Waterford Regional Hospital.
Articles & Documentation
Status Report 1609013: artist-in-residence as ‘new organ of perception’
A midway status report of artist Jeffrey Gormly's six month residency at Waterford Regional Hospital.
Articles & Documentation
A Gathering Place: Menu of Poems 2013
This Menu of Poems on the theme of ‘gathering places’is intended for distribution throughout a range of healthcare settings in Ireland in 2013.
Articles & Documentation
Waterford Healing Arts Trust Annual Report 2012 (PDF)
A report on WHAT's work in 2012.
Articles & Documentation
MARKING ‘ANAMNESIS’: Witnessing the public discussion of Marie Brett’s ‘Amulet Project’ (PDF)
A witness account of a public discussion on ‘Anamnesis’, an exhibition of new works by artist Marie Brett in The Index Gallery at the Waterford Central Library in April 2013.
Articles & Documentation
Spears of Daylight
Spears of Daylight contempory arts exhibition, inspired by the creative writing of service users at St.
Articles & Documentation
Presentations from Arts – Health – Entrepreneurship? A Conference on Arts and Health Projects and Practices (PDF)
Documentation from the Arts - Health - Entrepreneurship.
Articles & Documentation
Documentation from Evaluating Arts + Health Collaborative Practice CPD (PDF)
This document is Susanne Burn's presentation from Evaluating Arts + Health Collaborative Practice which was a continuous professional development training day led by Susanne Burns and co-hosted by the Waterford Healing Arts Trust and Create.
Articles & Documentation
All About Us (PDF)
Memories, stories and poems by patients and staff from the Dialysis Unit, Waterford Regional Hospital created through the arts programme of the Waterford Healing Arts Trust.
Articles & Documentation
The Quiet Heart (PDF)
An exhibition catalogue of artwork by Martin Fahy Artist in Residence with the Waterford Healing Arts Trust.
Articles & Documentation
The Quiet Heart: Exhibition Opening Text (PDF)
This text is from a talk given by writer Grace Wells at the opening of The Quiet Heart exhibition at Waterford Regional Hospital in September 2012.
Articles & Documentation
Body Conscious (PDF)
An exhibition catalogue of artwork by Dorothy Ann Daly on display in Waterford Regional Hospital.
Articles & Documentation
Body Conscious: Exhibition Opening Text (PDF)
This text is from a talk given by Mary Ruth Walsh at the opening of the Body Conscious exhibition at Waterford Regional Hospital in June 2012.
Articles & Documentation
Reignite the Spark (PDF)
A snapshot of an arts and health Partnership told from all perspectives.
Articles & Documentation
Media Review: The King’s Speech
A review of the film The King's Speech with reference to Medical Humanities.
Articles & Documentation
Once Upon a Time (PDF)
An exhibition catalogue of artwork by Laura Fitzgerald Artist in Residence with WHAT.
Articles & Documentation
Creative Reverie: Meeting the person as an artist (PDF)
Documentation of Mayo County Council's Artist in Residence programme at the Sacred Heart Hospital.
Articles & Documentation
Culture + Health Strand: a study of 32 projects in diverse healthcare settings (PDF)
A study of the Culture and Health Strand of the programme for Cork 2005: European Capital of Culture.
Articles & Documentation
A Time to Remember: Memories of St Joseph’s Hospital Arts Project Ennis (PDF)
Reflections, observations and experiences of St.
Articles & Documentation
Between Colours: Mayo County Council Artists’ Mentoring & Networking Programme (PDF)
Documentation of Mayo County Council's Artists' Mentoring and Network Programme.
Articles & Documentation
Creative Exchanges (PDF)
The history and achievements of Age & Opportunity's Arts in Care Settings Programme.
Articles & Documentation
Memory Dress
Documentation of the Memory Dress project at St.
Articles & Documentation
Different Tune (PDF)
An article based on conversations between mentor Anne Woodworth and musician/ mentee Kevin O'Shanahan.
Articles & Documentation
A creative challenge – the curatorship of contemporary art practice in an acute hospital context (PDF)
A conference paper considering varying approaches to curating contemporary art in acute hospitals.
Articles & Documentation
Reflections on Music Therapy and Arts in Health
A structured reflection on the author's experiences of both music therapy and the arts and health work within healthcare services.
Articles & Documentation
Missing Language, Silent Voices and the Art of Listening: Artists operating in the Health Service (PDF)
An essay supporting the Vital Signs exhibition as part of the Vital Signs conference in Dublin, 2009.
Articles & Documentation
Jennie Moran interviews Jennie Moran about Personal Effects (PDF)
An artist's report of a visual art project at Galway's Merlin Park Hospital in a unit for people who had recently experienced a stroke.
Articles & Documentation
Vital Signs: Points of View (PDF)
A series of opinion pieces about arts and health commissioned as part of the Vital Signs conference in Dublin, 2009.
Articles & Documentation
The Green Room Project (PDF)
An exhibition catalogue of artwork made by Pauline Keena in collaboration with a group of mothers, all of whom had the experience of losing a baby in the neo-natal period.
Articles & Documentation
Hospital arts co-ordinators:an accidental profession? (PDF)
Research focusing on hospital based arts co-ordinators and their views on the challenges posed by their work.
Articles & Documentation
Return to Sender (PDF)
Claire Meaney talks to Emily Robyn Archer about the Post Room Project at Waterford Regional Hospital.
Articles & Documentation
The Post Room Project (PDF)
An exhibition catalogue of artwork by Emily Robyn Archer Artist in Residence with the Waterford Healing Arts Trust.
Articles & Documentation
Culture Does Good: Turku 2011 Wellbeing Programme
This document encapsulates the beneficial impacts of Turku 2011 Capital of Culture for individuals and communities.
Articles & Documentation
Beyond Captured Time (PDF)
An exhibition catalogue of artwork and writing created through the WHAT arts programme in the Dialysis Unit of Waterford Regional Hospital.
Articles & Documentation
Separate Storms (PDF)
An exhibition catalogue of artwork by participants of the Waterford Healing Arts Trust’s Open Studio Workshop.
Articles & Documentation
… you are only one thing amongst many. And whoever sees that way, heals his heart (PDF)
Experimental address to the issue of organ transplantation.
Articles & Documentation
Hale and Arty (PDF)
A discussion on contemporary arts engagement with the healthcare sector which considers some critical frameworks for arts and health practice.
Articles & Documentation
Arts practices in unreasonable doubt? Reflections on understandings of arts practices in healthcare contexts (PDF)
Reflections of understandings of arts practices in healthcare contexts.
Articles & Documentation
Working on the Edge (PDF)
Comparing the role of an arts therapist to the role of an artist working in an arts and health context.
Articles & Documentation
Menu of Poems (PDF)
A short anthology of poetry that was distributed through a range of hospitals and day centres in Ireland in 2011.
Articles & Documentation
Dialogue Arts + Health Witness Writer (PDF)
An artist's account of the National | Dialogue Arts + Health event.
Articles & Documentation
Dialogue Arts + Health Witness Writer (PDF)
An artist's account of the National | Dialogue Arts + Health event.
Articles & Documentation
Observations and key points from proceedings at National | Dialogue Arts + Health (PDF)
Documentation of the National | Dialogue Arts + Health event.
Articles & Documentation
Unravelling Arts and Health Practice (PDF)
An artist’s perspective on arts and health.
Articles & Documentation
Waterford Healing Arts Trust Annual Report 2011 (PDF)
A report on WHAT's work in 2011.
Articles & Documentation
A-sy-lum (PDF)
An exhibition catalogue of artwork by service users and staff from Wexford Mental Health Services.
Articles & Documentation
Documenting Arts & Health Resource Pack (PDF)
This resource pack covers a broad spectrum of documentation and is the result of a professional devlepment training day held in Waterford, April 2012.
Articles & Documentation
Creating a New Old Conference – Reflections (PDF)
Reflections on the Creating a New Old Conference, Dublin, May 2012.
Other (9 results)
Student Placements
The Arts & Health Student Training Portal provides student artists with volunteer placement opportunities to support and learn from a professional artist on an existing arts programme with a health or social care service.
Find
The national arts and health website is delighted to announce that we will be offering two bursaries in 2022. The documentation bursary will support the production of a short film, audio documentary or publication about an arts and health project. The emerging artist reflective bursary is available for an early-career artist to reflect on their arts and health practice.
Useful Links
Information and links to national and international arts and health organisations, programmes and research networks.
Contact us
Phone: + 353 (0)51-842664 Email: info@artsandhealth.ie [addr]Address: artsandhealth.ie Centre for Arts & Health University Hospital Waterford Dunmore Road, Waterford, Ireland, X91 ER8E.[/addr].
Resources
The national and international resources shared here span over 25 years of research in the field of arts and health.
Directory
The Directory contains information on arts and health programmes and key contacts in your area.
Inspiration
Opinion pieces, conversations, poems, artworks and chronicles to inspire you.
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artsandhealth.ie is an independent national website providing a focal point and resource for the emergent field of arts and health in Ireland via resource documents, project case studies, a directory of contacts, perspectives on a range of issues and current news.
News (2158 results)
News
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Opportunity
Open Call: National Arts in Nursing Homes Day Award 2025
Age & Opportunity’s Bealtaine Festival, in partnership with Nursing Homes Ireland, are inviting applications from care settings for the National Arts in Nursing Homes Day Award.
Event
Call for participation: Art and Art Therapy ‘Shared Experience Sessions’ by Smiling Dog Collective
Smiling Dog are exploring the contemporary significance of artists and arts therapists working in healthcare settings, for an article to be published in 2025.
Opportunity
Opportunities for artists with Saolta Arts – HSE West & North West Hospitals
Saolta Arts invites professional practicing visual artists to apply for opportunities in the following hospitals of HSE West and North West in 2025 – 2026: University Hospital Galway, Merlin Park University Hospital, Portiuncula University Hospital Ballinasloe, Mayo University Hospital and Roscommon University Hospital.
Opportunity
Arts + Health: Check Up Check In 2025 – Save the Date & Open Call for Submissions
Arts + Health: Check Up Check In 2025 will take place on Wednesday 30 April in Esker Arts, Tullamore.
Event
Sharing Stories: A collaborative exhibition between CHI staff and artist Peggie Mc Keon
Sharing Stories is a collaborative exhibition born from a series of lunchtime wellbeing workshops for Children's Health Ireland's staff, facilitated by Visual Artist Peggie Mc Keon.
News
A deep dive – Luci Kershaw reflects on her arts and health practice
Luci Kershaw is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Galway.
News
Launch of WISE: Artists and Older People Network
Age & Opportunity has launched a network designed to connect and support artists working with older people across the Republic of Ireland.
Event
Discover & Dream – Arts + Mental Health Networking Event
Well Festival of Arts and Wellbeing and West Cork Feel Good Festival are hosting a special networking event for artists, healthcare professionals and arts managers working in arts and mental health.
Event
Creative Health & Arts Therapies: Our Shared Roots and Growth – Lecture by Dr Val Huet
As part of the Belfast School of Art 175 celebrations, Dr Val Huet, visiting professor for the MSc Art Psychotherapy programme, will deliver an in-person public lecture on Thursday 6 February.
Event
Well Festival of Arts & Wellbeing 2025
Well Festival of Arts and Wellbeing 2025 will take place in venues across Waterford city and county, with an inspirational line-up of over 30 fun, free and sociable arts events for all ages.
Event
Healing Through Photography Conference: Trauma & the Art of Recovery
Healing Through Photography is a unique two-day conference hosted by Belfast Exposed that delves into the transformative power of photography as a medium for healing, growth, and connection.
Opportunity
Artist Opportunity: Artistic Facilitator at CAMHS, Limerick
Creative Ireland Limerick, Limerick City and County Council and the Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) seek an Artistic Facilitator.
Opportunity
Professional Diploma in Art and Health 2025 – NCAD / Creative Futures Academy
The National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in partnership with Creative Futures Academy is now accepting applications for the Professional Diploma in Art and Health 2025 (Level 9 NFQ).
Opportunity
Inclusive Adaptive Céilí – Dance Leader Training 2025
All Irish Dance is an award-winning not-for-profit organisation specialising in the delivery of first-of-a-kind evidence-based training empowering people (with or without prior experience) with the knowledge, skills and confidence to lead inclusive adaptive Céilí dance activities for all ages, all levels and all abilities in local communities and care settings.
Event
‘Theatre Room’ Workshop: A Smart D8 project in collaboration with GBHI and Outlandish Theatre
Are you a resident of Dublin 8 and interested in art, health and public spaces.
Opportunity
Open Call: Arts & Health Residency – Creative Places Tipperary Town
Creative Places Tipperary Town is seeking two socially engaged artists from all disciplines, with facilitation experience and a background in Arts and Health contexts, for a six-month residency running from February to July 2025.
Opportunity
Arts Participation Bursary Award 2025 – Arts Council
The Arts Council’s Arts Participation Bursary Award supports individual professional artists working in any artform to develop their arts participation practice, including collaborative, community and socially engaged arts practices.
Opportunity
Mothering Spaces Research 2025 – Call for Expressions of Interest
Established in 2022, Mothering Spaces seeks to explore themes and issues around female health, the maternal and feminine identity through curatorial and research methods.
Opportunity
Invitation to Tender: Arts and Social Prescribing Research – Arts Council of Ireland
The Arts Council is inviting tenders for the provision of research services exploring the current role and potential development of arts and creative activities taking place as part of HSE-funded social prescribing services in Ireland.
Opportunity
Thank you for hearing me – Invitation to participate
How do our voices determine how we live in the world.
News
National Arts in Nursing Homes Day – Information Webinar
If you work in a nursing home, day care centre or community hospital, consider organising an event for National Arts in Nursing Homes Day 2025.
Opportunity
Kildare First Fortnight Award 2025
Kildare County Council Arts Service invites individual artists and/or collectives in any artform to apply for the First Fortnight Award 2025.
Event
Museums, Health and Wellbeing Summit 2025 – Online, 28-29 January
The world's leading conference for museum professionals interested in health and wellbeing is back for its fourth year, bringing together inspiring presentations and actionable advice from those leading this work in museums around the globe.
News
Invitation to Participate in Research Study on Mural Art in Northern Ireland
People living in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are invited to take part in a new study exploring the unconscious impact of mural art on the psychosocial landscape of the North of Ireland / Northern Ireland.
Opportunity
Unheard Voices: Spoken Word / Poetry Commission
A group of five PhD researchers from the Science Foundation Ireland, ADVANCE CRT programme, are looking to develop a collaboration with a poet or a spoken word artist.
Opportunity
Arts, Health & Wellbeing Award 2025: Kildare Arts Service
Kildare County Council Arts Service welcomes applications from individual artists and/or art collectives practicing in any artform to the Kildare Arts, Health & Wellbeing Award 2025.
Opportunity
Call for Creative Consultant – Developing neuro-affirmative approaches to access and inclusion
Developing a creative approach to embedding equal access and opportunity for neuro-diverse audiences, artists, volunteers and organisers in Wexford’s cultural festival scene: Fee: €8,000, with €2,000 for materials and travel (€10,000 in total).
Event
Nature’s Tapestry: A TUH collaboration with RUA RED
The Arts & Health Programme at Tallaght University Hospital (TUH) in collaboration with Rua Red South Dublin Arts Centre present Nature's Tapestry, an exhibition dedicated to the breathtaking landscapes and diverse wildlife of Ireland.
Event
Azure Dementia-Inclusive Tours at Photo Museum Ireland
Azure is a free experience at Photo Museum Ireland designed for people living with dementia and their families, friends and carers.
News
BEHOLD at Tallaght University Hospital – An exhibition of original artworks from the AIB Art Collection
The latest exhibition from the Arts & Health Department at Tallaght University Hospital is BEHOLD, a selection of original artworks on loan from the AIB Art Collection.
Opportunity
Call for Project Co-ordinator: Mending HeArts, Creative Health and Wellbeing Project
Saolta Arts, the west of Ireland’s leading Arts and Health programme, is seeking a project co-ordinator to deliver Mending HeArts, a Creative Health and Wellbeing project for people living with heart conditions in Galway.
Event
How do artists and arts therapists sit in contemporary arts + health practice? – New research and exhibition
Smiling Dog are an arts and health collective exploring how art and art therapy coexist, and what each does in companionship and/or contention in participatory and healthcare contexts.
Event
The Tightrope Walker at First Fortnight Festival 2025
With humour and humility, The Tightrope Walker by Jenny Macdonald navigates a personal journey through the chaotic and profound territory of illness and recovery.
Event
First Fortnight Festival 2025: The Art of Mental Health
Every January, the First Fortnight Festival challenges mental health stigma and promotes mental health wellbeing through national arts and culture events.
Event
(Dis)Placed: A Theatre of the Oppressed Festival
(Dis)Placed is a Theatre of the Oppressed festival that delves into the complex relationships between people and the land they call home.
Student Placement
Student Placements – Cork County Arts & Library Service (REF 002)
The Arts & Health Student Training Portal provides student artists with volunteer placement opportunities to support and learn from a professional artist on an existing arts programme with a health or social care service.
News
Take part! WHO Survey on the role of the arts and arts therapies in supporting youth mental health
The Jameel Arts & Health Lab, in collaboration with the World Health Organisation, is embarking on a series of arts and health policy briefs to synthesize evidence and share examples of how engaging in the arts contribute to health and wellbeing across the lifespan and across settings.
Opportunity
Call for Project Co-ordinator: Shared Island Creative Health & Wellbeing Project
Creative Ireland Kerry within Kerry County Council is seeking a project co-ordinator to deliver Weaving Worlds Together, a Shared Island Creative Health and Wellbeing Project.
Opportunity
Project artists sought for Ignite cross-border community programme
Arts Care, Northern Ireland’s leading Arts in Health organisation, is seeking three artists for the Ignite Community Programme, a four-year social innovation programme which will take place across Northern Ireland and the border counties of the Republic of Ireland.
News
New Report Highlights Potential of Singing on Wellbeing of Young Refugees
Sing Up Foundation has published a new report, ‘Then the dream started to be more’: Singing and Music-Making with Refugee Children and Unaccompanied Minors: Insights From Research and Practice.
News
Earthly Delights: New exhibition opens at University Hospital Waterford
Earthly Delights is a new exhibition by artist Paul McCloskey at University Hospital Waterford.
Event
Dance classes for people with Dementia and Parkinson’s, Well-Dance for Older Adults: Dance Theatre of Ireland
Dance Theatre of Ireland aims to increase access to and participation in dance, including for those who might not participate otherwise.
Student Placement
Student Placement – Helium Arts Out Patients Programme in Cork (REF 001)
The Arts & Health Student Training Portal provides student artists with volunteer placement opportunities to support and learn from a professional artist on an existing arts programme with a health or social care service.
Event
Checking In 2024: Online gathering for the arts and health community
Réalta, the national organisation dedicated to developing arts + health in Ireland, is hosting an online gathering of the arts and health community in Ireland on Tuesday 12 November.
Opportunity
Helium Arts is Seeking a Volunteer Services Manager
Helium Arts is seeking a motivated, experienced and highly organised Volunteer Services Manager to deliver an efficient and effective volunteer support network for Helium Arts.
Opportunity
Helium Arts is Seeking Creative Producers: Creative Health Programme
Helium Arts invites applications from professional Creative Producers who work across artforms with a strong collaborative practice to join a newly created Helium Arts Creative Producer Panel.
Opportunity
Helium Arts is Seeking Visual Artists: Children’s Creative Health Programme
Helium Arts invites applications from professional, multi-disciplinary visual artists to deliver their Creative Health Programme in Cork, Dublin, Galway and Limerick and surrounding counties as well as online.
News
Sites of Significance: Cross-border research on pathways to engagement and work in dance
Sites of Significance is a research report and short documentary film exploring pathways to engagement and work in dance experienced by dance artists and facilitators who live and / or work within territorial border areas of Cavan and Fermanagh-Omagh Council areas.
Event
Workshop: Addressing Difference and Conflict in Creative Collaborations with Radical Institute
Create and Radical Institute (founding members: Eve Olney and Krini Kafiris) are hosting a one-day workshop which draws from Eve’s work on sustainable organising practices in collaborative and participatory processes, with a focus on addressing difference and conflict in creative collective work.
Event
Performing Anxiety – Online discussion as part of Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival
Arts Culture Health and Wellbeing Scotland has teamed up with the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival to curate a programme of online discussions covering key themes, best practice, available tools and more.
News
Mending heARTS – Arts and Health project for people living with heart conditions in Galway
A new programme of arts workshops for patients and people living with heart conditions launched in Galway City on Sunday 29 September, as part of World Heart Day.
Event
Arts Health Research Intensive 2025
The Arts Health Research Intensive training course provides a rich introduction to the evidence base around arts in health and fundamentals of evaluation and research.
Event
Reaching Out To Be Global: Online networking for Creative Ageing practitioners
Reaching Out To Be Global is a free online event aimed at those working in the field of Creative Ageing who are keen to connect with others, share practice and explore international partnerships.
Opportunity
Applications open for Experience 2024: An Introduction to Arts, Health & the Older Person
Experience 2024: An Introduction to Arts, Health and the Older Person is a one-day learning programme for artists and arts practitioners of all disciplines.
Event
The Tightrope Walker at Tallaght University Hospital – Public Event
The Tightrope Walker by Jenny Macdonald navigates a personal journey through the chaotic and profound territory of illness and recovery with humour and humility.
Event
It’s Never Just Black or White: Exhibition marking World Mental Health Day in Westmeath
Mental Health Ireland will launch It’s Never Just Black or White, an exhibition featuring artwork by participants from local Mental Health Services in Athlone and Mullingar, on 10 October to mark World Mental Health Day.
Opportunity
Kildare Artist in Residence Award at Naas General Hospital
Kildare County Council Library & Arts Service in partnership with Naas General Hospital welcome submissions for Did I Ever Tell You, a new Artist in Residence programme, based in the hospital.
Event
West Cork Feel Good Festival 2024
West Cork Feel Good Festival is back for its 12th edition this October.
Event
GBHI Creative Brainwaves Talks: Dublin series returns this October
Creative Brainwaves returns to dlr LexIcon in Dublin for a third series of talks and workshops this October, exploring how our engagement in various creative arts can benefit our brain health.
Opportunity
Call for Musicians for Care Home Concerts in Kerry
Kerry County Council invites submissions from professional musicians to deliver a programme of performances within care home settings throughout the county.
News
The forest that won’t forget: An artwork dedicated to women and families affected by CervicalCheck failures
The forest that won't forget is a national public artwork dedicated to us, the women and families across Ireland who are affected by the failures of the CervicalCheck programme.
Event
Feeling Soundscapes at The MAC, Belfast
Feeling Soundscapes is an experiential event to help us to reflect on how we feel about the sounds of daily life, drawing on the working knowledge of therapists, sound artists, and musicians.
Event
Creative Communities Roadshow in Cork City
Cork City Council Arts Office will host a series of five in-person and one online creative, community-focused networking events in October 2024 as part of the Creative Communities Roadshow.
Opportunity
Call for Collaborators: Global South Arts and Health Pavilion for Black History Month Ireland
Global South Arts in Health (GSAH) aims to advance education, scientific research, and interdisciplinary practice of arts in health, creative art therapy, and community-based art engagements in the Global South (Africa, Asia, and Latin America) through a wide range of collaborations, community projects, cultural exchanges, workshops, exhibitions, performances, and plenary presentations.
Opportunity
Call for Artists: Creative Health and Wellbeing in the Community Project
Cork City Council, in partnership with the Irish Hospice Foundation, is seeking expressions of interest from artists of all disciplines with facilitation experience and knowledge of working with young people and/or vulnerable older adults for a new project: 'Exploring Loss and Grief: Healing Through Art'.
Opportunity
Creative Programme Coordinator – Northern Ireland Mental Health Arts Festival
Northern Ireland Mental Health Arts Festival (NIMHAF) is seeking a Creative Programme Coordinator to lead a team of volunteers, freelance creative professionals and event co-ordinators.
News
Call for participants! Research Study on Mural Art in Northern Ireland
Researchers from Ulster University’s School of Communication and Media are conducting a new study exploring the unconscious impact of mural art on the psychosocial landscape of the North of Ireland/Northern Ireland.
Event
MISA Annual Public Lecture: The Impact of the Arts on Public Health with Daisy Fancourt
Daisy Fancourt, Professor of Psychobiology and Epidemiology at University College London and Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Arts and Health, will deliver MISA's Annual Public Lecture in collaboration with Creative Ireland on 23 September 2024.
Opportunity
Call for Tenders – Creative Lead for EPIC Arts Project with Children in Care
EPIC, Empowering People in Care, is seeking a Creative Lead for Know Your Rights in Care, a participative arts project with children and young people in care.
News
The HSE publishes Safe Harbour: An illustrated storybook for children bereaved by suicide
Safe Harbour is a free illustrated story book for children who have been bereaved by suicide. Published by the HSE in June 2024, Safe Harbour is written by Patricia Forde – Ireland's Laureate na nÓg – and illustrated by visual artist Bronagh Lee.
Event
The Centre of Everything: An exhibition celebrating 20 years of Arts Ability
The Centre of Everything celebrates the creative work of over fifty artists who participate in Arts Ability, an initiative of Wexford County Council, the HSE, and Wexford Mental Health Association.
Opportunity
Matchmaking for Artmaking: Opportunity for care settings
Being creative and making art is enormously enjoyable and personally enriching and can make a huge contribution to a person’s wellbeing, especially in care settings.
Opportunity
Arts Council Artist in the Community Scheme 2024 – Round Two
The Arts Council’s Artist in the Community Scheme, managed by Create, offers awards to enable artists and communities of place and/or interest to work together on projects.
Opportunity
Creative Exchanges Course for Activity Co-ordinators – September 2024
Age & Opportunity is facilitating a two-day Creative Exchanges course at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) in Dublin this September.
News
Save the Date! Socially Engaged Practice: Building Equity in a Divided World
Create’s annual networking event brings together those working in or entering the field of collaborative, socially engaged arts.
Event
Healing Arts Scotland: Online Conference Programme 20-23 August
Healing Arts Scotland is a week-long celebration of arts and health initiatives across the country that help improve people’s wellbeing.
Event
Illness as Metaphor by Dead Centre – Dublin Fringe Festival 2024
In her book Illness as Metaphor, Susan Sontag sets out to diagnose the problem with the way we think about illness.
Opportunity
Fulbright – Creative Ireland Professional Fellowship 2025-2026
Creative Ireland partners with the Fulbright Commission to support one creative professional to work with a host institution in the U.S.
Opportunity
Open Call: Artist in Residence at Tallaght University Hospital
Tallaght University Hospital (TUH) Arts & Health Department in collaboration with colleagues in Tymon North Community Unit and St Luke’s Hospital, Unit C are inviting artists to apply to be an Artist in Residence, facilitating art sessions for patients at the bedside and becoming a valued and supported member of the arts team.
News
Save the Date: Experience 2024, An Introduction to Arts, Health & the Older Person
Experience 2024: An Introduction to Arts, Health and the Older Person will take place on Thursday 5 December at Limerick City Gallery of Art.
Opportunity
Open Call: Project Co-ordinator for Creative Health & Wellbeing Project
Kildare County Council Library & Arts Service is seeking a Project Co-ordinator to support the co-ordination and evaluation of Did I Ever Tell You, a creative health and wellbeing project taking place across counties Kildare, Offaly and Westmeath.
News
Empower Her exhibition at Tallaght University Hospital
Empower Her is an exhibition by photographer Linda Hanlon at Tallaght University Hospital celebrating the extraordinary women of Ireland.
News
Report on the Development of Local and Community Arts published by Joint Oireachtas Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media
The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media published its Report on the Development of Local and Community Arts on 11 July 2024.
Opportunity
Open Call for Musicians: Music & Health Guest Musician Panel 2024-2025
Music & Health Ireland invites professional musicians from all genres and backgrounds to apply to join a Musicians Guest Panel for opportunities within healthcare and community settings across Ireland in 2024-2025.
Opportunity
Expressions of Interest: Project Co-ordination Services for Creativity in Health and Wellbeing in the Community Project
Cork City Council invites expressions of interest from qualified individuals / organisations for the provision of project co-ordination services for the Creativity in Health & Wellbeing in the Community project 'Exploring Loss and Grief: Healing Through Art with the Compassionate Support of a Hospice Foundation'.
Opportunity
Training Opportunity for Artists for Healthcare Settings
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council Arts Office is seeking expressions of interest from professional artists who are already working in or are interested in working in healthcare settings.
News
Caru and Irish Hospice Foundation announce recipients of Seed Grants 2024: Arts in Residential Care
Six projects supporting creative exploration and responses to grief and loss in a residential care setting have been awarded Irish Hospice Foundation Seed Grants, in conjunction with Caru.
Event
Irish Doctors Orchestra: September concert in aid of Réalta / Waterford Healing Arts
Medicine will meet music at the Irish Doctors Orchestra’s special fundraising concert on 29 September at the SETU Arena.
Event
Save the Date: Réalta announces Checking In 2024, virtual gathering of the arts and health community on 12 November
Réalta, the national organisation dedicated to developing arts and health in Ireland, will present Checking In 2024, its latest virtual gathering of the arts and health community in Ireland, on Tuesday 12 November.
News
Luci Kershaw announced as recipient of artsandhealth.ie Emerging Artist Bursary 2024
The national arts and health website is delighted to announce that Luci Kershaw has been awarded this year’s Emerging Artist Bursary, funded by the Arts Council and the HSE.
News
Hearth announced as recipient of artsandhealth.ie Documentation Bursary 2024
The national arts and health website is delighted to announce that Hearth, a Mayo-based arts programme for older people living in their own homes, has been awarded this year’s Documentation Bursary which is funded by the Arts Council and the HSE.
Opportunity
Open Call for independent evaluation of Art at the Kitchen Table – A Waterford Healing Arts participatory programme
Réalta, the national resource organisation dedicated to developing arts + health in Ireland, is seeking tenders from suitably qualified individuals or organisations to undertake an independent evaluation of the Waterford Healing Arts programme, Art at the Kitchen Table.
Opportunity
Open Call – Artists Care Exchange 2024
Age & Opportunity is offering a unique professional development bursary to professional artists who work, or wish to work, in care settings with older people.
Opportunity
Call for Project Co-ordinator – Creative Workplace Wellbeing Programme
Make Or Break is a pilot Creative Health and Wellbeing Programme which aims to promote employee wellbeing through creative workshops offered in the workplace.
Event
In Two Minds comes to Edinburgh Festival Fringe
In Two Minds is a deeply personal and life-affirming production by Limerick-based theatre artist Joanne Ryan which explores the realities of living with bipolar disorder and its effects on relationships and family.
Opportunity
The Arts Council’s Arts Participation Project Award 2025 opens for applications
The Arts Council's Arts Participation Project Award supports initiatives in the field of arts participation (participatory, collaborative, community and socially engaged arts practices).
Event
Healing Arts Scotland: A week-long celebration of arts and health
Healing Arts is the global outreach campaign of the Jameel Arts & Health Lab in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO). Healing Arts Scotland is the first ever countrywide Healing Arts Week, following previous city-wide celebrations around the world, including New York, Paris, London, Venice and Jaipur.
Opportunity
Vacancy: Curator IMMA Horizons (Maternity Cover)
The Irish Museum of Modern Art is seeking a Curator to manage and deliver the IMMA Horizons Programme.
Opportunity
Artist in the Community Scheme Bursary Awards 2024
The Artist in the Community (AIC) Scheme Bursary Award is designed to support individual professional artists in any artform to develop their collaborative socially engaged arts practice.
Event
Launch of the Clinical-Creative Partnerships for Dementia Care Report
Clinical-Creative Partnerships for Dementia Care is a pilot initiative funded by the Global Brain Health Institute, the Alzheimer's Association and Alzheimer’s Society, and spearheaded by Gráinne Hope, Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health at GBHI and Director of Music & Health Ireland.
Opportunity
Open Call for Visual or Dance Artists – Arts for Health Partnership Programme, West Cork
Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre is seeking a visual or dance artist to join an artists panel for the delivery of a multi-artform programme for older people as part of the Arts for Health Partnership Programme, West Cork.
Event
Templates of Chance at Rua Red: Visualising the addiction recovery process
Over the last 18 months Luxembourg artists Stéphanie Rollin and David Brognon have embedded themselves within the community of Tallaght as part of a residency and new commission for Rua Red, South Dublin Arts Centre.
Opportunity
HSE Per Cent for Art Commission – Hampson House, Dublin
The Health Service Executive (HSE) is undertaking fit out works at Hampson House, North Earl Street, Dublin 1 in 2024 and intends to commission permanent artworks under the Per Cent for Art (PCFA) Scheme.
Event
Helium Arts to host week-long celebration from 11-15 June at the Naughton Institute in Dublin
Come join us as we celebrate! To mark our launch in Dublin and to celebrate our first five years delivering impactful, creative programmes, Helium Arts is hosting a week-long celebration from 11 - 15 June at the Naughton Institute (the former Science Gallery) at Trinity College Dublin on Pearse Street, including a launch event on June 11th.
News
Creative Health and Wellbeing Projects receive over €1.2 million from Creative Ireland
The Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin, T.D.
Event
Assemblages of Sanctuary: Art, Displacement & Mental Health – Online Talk
Creative spaces of sanctuary are vibrant assemblages where artists and communities with lived experience of forced displacement come together to co-create dynamic spaces that embody an expansive sense of hope and possibility.
Event
Arts in Healthcare workshops for HSE Cork Kerry Community Healthcare staff working with older people
Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre is hosting a series of three evening workshops during Bealtaine Festival for HSE Cork Kerry Community Healthcare staff working with older people.
Opportunity
Creativity & Change Certificate Course Now Recruiting
The Creativity & Change post-graduate certificate course takes place at Crawford College of Art & Design in Cork City, one weekend per month, from September 2024 to May 2025.
Opportunity
Irish Hospice Foundation: Seed Grants for Arts in Residential Care 2024
Irish Hospice Foundation (IHF) invites artists and healthcare professionals to submit proposals for their 2024 Seed Grant programme for creative exploration and responses to grief and loss in residential care settings and nursing homes.
Event
Bealtaine Festival Dawn Chorus with Drimoleague Community Choir
The Dawn Chorus is a nationwide choral event in which older people come together with a choir in their locality and sing at dawn to welcome the day and the season.
Opportunity
CHI Opportunity for Artists – Welcome to the Neighbourhood
Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) Arts in Health Programme is seeking to engage an artist / artists to work with young people in Dublin 8 and Dublin 12 on the creation of a body of artwork to be shown as part of their exhibition programme in the concourse of the new children’s hospital in Rialto.
News
Institute of Public Health launches toolkit and online learning courses on evaluating arts and creativity programmes for older adults
An evaluation toolkit and two free online learning courses on how to use evidence to show the benefits of arts and creativity in later life were launched by the Institute of Public Health (IPH) on 25 April.
Event
A Sense of Self exhibition at Dungarvan Library
A Sense of Self, a new art exhibition by participants from the Iontas Arts and Mental Health Programme, will be on show at Dungarvan Library until 12 May 2024.
Event
Cork Cultural Companions: Creative workshops for older adults in Cork City
Cork Cultural Companions is hosting a series of creativity workshops to celebrate Bealtaine Festival, Ireland’s national celebration of the arts and creativity as we age.
Event
Northern Ireland Mental Health Arts Festival celebrates its 10th anniversary
The Northern Ireland Mental Health Arts Festival (NIMHAF) celebrates its 10th anniversary in May 2024.
News
Room 12 at Aalborg University Hospital: Somaesthetic art for families experiencing still births
Cultivating a more empathetic environment for families experiencing stillbirth is at the heart of a collaboration between arts and health collective Studio Poesis and staff from the Department of Obstetrics at Aalborg University Hospital in North Denmark.
News
World Music Therapy Day at Tallaght University Hospital: An Arts & Health and Music Therapy Collaboration
Arts and Health at TUH and the Music Therapy Service hosted vibrant celebrations for World Music Therapy Day in Tallaght University Hospital on Monday 15 April.
Opportunity
Workshop for professional artists: Working with young people experiencing mental health difficulties
As part of The Blooming Minds Club at Creative Spark Dundalk, artist and art therapist Jenny Slater will present a morning workshop for professional artists on 28 May 2024.
News
Art in Dialysis – Punchestown Kidney Research Fund and amateur jockeys visit Tallaght University Hospital
Tallaght University Hospital runs a varied and vibrant arts programme in the Renal Unit. Patient-centred art and music sessions offer a break from clinical worries patients may have while undergoing their dialysis treatment, and facilitate creative needs within different capacities for individual patients.
News
Blooming Minds Club: A creative hub for young people with mental health difficulties
The Blooming Minds Club is a youth-led artist-supported creative arts hub for young people experiencing mental health difficulties based at Creative Spark Dundalk, with outreach workshops in Drogheda, County Louth.
Opportunity
Job Opportunity: Arts & Health Administrator at Tallaght University Hospital (Grade IV)
Tallaght University Hospital is seeking an Arts & Health Administrator (Grade IV) to support the vibrant and progressive programme delivered by the Arts & Health Department.
Opportunity
Arts + Health Bursaries 2024: Documentation Bursary and Emerging Artist Bursary
The national arts and health website is offering two bursaries in 2024, funded by the Arts Council and the HSE.
Opportunity
Irish Hospice Foundation Arts and Culture Training Programme
Irish Hospice Foundation (IHF) invites applicants for a free training programme exploring the many roles of arts and culture in contemporary dying, grief and bereavement.
Opportunity
Inclusive Adaptive Céilí – Dance Leader Training Programmes
All Irish Dance’s evidence-based training empowers you with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to lead fun, inclusive adaptive céilí activities in your local community or care setting.
Event
Caring for Creativity at Roscommon Arts Centre
Caring for Creativity at Roscommon Arts Centre brings together works by artists who had residencies in local care settings in Roscommon over the past year.
Event
Rewire Your Choir: Embracing Neurodiversity – Cork International Choral Festival
Dr Eva McMullan-Glossop is facilitating an interactive workshop as part of Cork International Choral Festival to demonstrate accessible and creative ways to rewire traditional approaches to choral teaching, making the choral rehearsal an enjoyable and accessible space for everyone.
Event
Bealtaine Festival 2024 – Ireland’s national celebration of the arts and creativity as we age
Bealtaine, Ireland’s annual festival celebrating creativity as we age, runs throughout the month of May.
Event
Healthier Ageing through Arts and Creativity: Institute of Public Health Webinar
The Institute of Public Health (IPH) is hosting a webinar on 25 April to launch a number of resources exploring Ageing, Arts and Creativity: An evaluation toolkit and two new online learning pathways that will provide practical guidance on how to assess the impact of arts and creativity interventions in later life.
Event
When the Last Drop Saw the Sky at the Irish Film Institute
When the Last Drop Saw the Sky is a short film about the positive mental health journeys of members of Suaimhneas Clubhouse HSE/EVE in Raheny.
Event
Talk: Collaborative approaches with orchestras in children’s hospices (in-person and online)
St Columba’s Hospice Care in Edinburgh is continuing its series of talks on the Arts in Palliative Care with an exploration of music engagement in children’s hospice settings on 26 April.
Opportunity
Call for Artist Facilitator: Early Years Pilot Arts Project in Leitrim
Leitrim County Council Arts Office, in collaboration with the Healthy Leitrim Breastfeeding Programme, is launching an Early Years Pilot Arts Project.
Opportunity
Job Opportunity: Development Coordinator at Galway Community Circus
Galway Community Circus is looking for a Development Coordinator to support the development and implementation of their fundraising strategy, increase income generation and diversify funding streams to help deliver their artistic ambitions across an exciting portfolio of programmes and partnerships.
Event
Puppetry Healing Stories in Hospital Care – Webinar
Puppetry Healing Stories in Hospital Care will showcase examples of contemporary practices by puppeteers using puppets in hospital settings. It will address the various contexts in which puppets can be used for both adults and children in hospitals, and will also examine some of the principles and ideas underlying these practices.
Opportunity
Open Call for Socially Engaged Artists: AIC Artist Mentoring Award 2024
Create, the national development agency for collaborative arts, invites expressions of interest from collaborative socially engaged artists, or artists interested in/transitioning into collaborative socially engaged arts, who wish to avail of a focused period of mentorship to develop and consolidate their practice.
Opportunity
Open Tender: Artists Care Exchange Facilitator with Age & Opportunity
Age & Opportunity is seeking tenders from individuals with an interest and background in the arts and older people in a care context, to act as facilitator for the third year of the Artists Care Exchange (ACE), an Age & Opportunity Arts initiative.
Opportunity
Arts Council Agility Award 2024
Applications for the Arts Council's Agility Award are now open.
Event
Bedtime Adventures – An enchanting dreamscape for children with lifelong health conditions
Bedtime Adventures is an enchanting interactive dreamscape for children aged six and under with lifelong health conditions and/or additional needs.
Event
Less Visible Threads at Creative Brain Week
Less Visible Threads is dedicated to displaying stories of arts and health in Ireland, and forms part of the exhibition programme at Creative Brain Week 2024.
Opportunity
Call for Proposals: Culture & Mental Health International Conference: Refugees
The second Culture & Mental Health international conference takes place in Ghent, Belgium on 28 and 29 November 2024.
Opportunity
Rhythm2Recovery Facilitator Training at University of Limerick
Rhythm2Recovery is delivering a two-day training course in Ireland for professionals working in the health, education and personal development fields.
Opportunity
Saolta Arts: Open Call for Exhibition Proposals at University Hospital Galway
Saolta Arts is currently accepting proposals for its 2024 - 2025 visual arts exhibition programme at University Hospital Galway.
Opportunity
Arts Council Artist in the Community Scheme 2024 – Round One
The Arts Council’s Artist in the Community Scheme, managed by Create, offers awards to enable artists and communities of place and/or interest to work together on projects.
News
Have Your Say: Exploring Marginalised Voices in Ireland’s Arts Sector (Safe to Create Survey)
Safe to Create are undertaking quantitative and qualitative research to gather as much intersecting information as possible about what it's like to work in the arts/creative sectors if you have a disability, are a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, and/or from a minoritised racial or ethnic background.
Opportunity
Call for participants: Siblings research project
Are you an adult who grew up with a sibling with a disability or chronic illness? If so, artist Tess Leak would love to meet you! Tess is conducting some research to explore the experiences and needs of other adult siblings (like herself) through one-to-one informal conversations.
Event
Irish Doctors Orchestra to perform charity concert at Ulster Hall, Belfast
The all-Ireland Irish Doctors Orchestra are performing at Ulster Hall, Belfast on Sunday 3 March 2024 to raise funds for Children in Northern Ireland, a charity with a focus on learning, collaboration, and influencing to improve outcomes for children, young people, and families.
Opportunity
Pilot Wheelchair Céilí Dance Leader Training Programme
All Irish Dance is a social enterprise tackling social isolation and loneliness by connecting people through céilí.
Opportunity
Call for volunteers to work with professional artists on Helium Arts’ Creative Health Programme
Helium Arts, the children's arts and health organisation, is seeking volunteers to work with professional artists to support the creativity of children and teenagers on its 2024 Creative Health Programme.
Event
The Tightrope Walker at Creative Brain Week
The Tightrope Walker by Jennifer Macdonald navigates a personal journey through the chaotic and profound territory of illness and recovery with humour and humility.
Opportunity
Creative Places Athy Arts Impact Award
Creative Places Athy is seeking proposals from local, national/international professional artists/creatives or arts organisations/collectives that wish to collaborate artistically with individuals or groups in Athy on creative projects that will create an artistic impact for the people and place of the area.
Opportunity
Cruinniú na nÓg 2024 – Dublin City Council Open Call
Dublin City Council is seeking proposals from children and young people, artists/creative practitioners, professional bodies, cultural organisations, and neighbourhood communities/organisations to be part of Cruinniú na nÓg 2024, the national day of free creativity for children and young people.
Event
Well Festival of Arts & Wellbeing 2024
This year’s Well Festival of Arts and Wellbeing in Waterford features an inspirational line-up of fun, free, inventive, inspirational and sociable arts events for all ages.
Event
Creative Brain Week 2024: Attention, Connection, Love
Creative Brain Week is an annual pioneering event that illustrates innovation at the intersection of arts and brain science, including creative approaches to health.
Opportunity
Mentoring opportunity for artists in Laois with artist Marie Brett
County Laois artists are invited to take part in a mentoring professional development series with artist Marie Brett who has extensive experience of arts and health practice.
Opportunity
National Arts in Nursing Homes Day Award 2024
Age & Opportunity’s Bealtaine Festival, in partnership with Nursing Homes Ireland, will recognise three outstanding arts projects through the National Arts in Nursing Homes Day Award 2024.
Opportunity
Bealtaine Hero Award 2024
The Bealtaine Hero Award offers local, community based groups (or individuals) an opportunity to host an ambitious, creative and experimental event for their community this May that celebrates the spirit of Bealtaine, Ireland’s annual festival celebrating creativity as we age.
Opportunity
Professional Diploma in Art and Health from NCAD – Creative Futures Academy
The National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in partnership with Creative Futures Academy is now accepting applications for the Professional Diploma in Art and Health 2024. This eight-week, blended course offers grounding in an art and health context and will connect participants with leading figures of practice.
Opportunity
Helium Arts seeks Programme Administrator (part-time) in Mullingar
Helium Arts, the national children’s arts and health organisation, is seeking to employ a Programme Administrator.
News
HSE Arts, Creativity and Health Projects awarded funding of over €100,000 by Creative Ireland
The RENEW partnership between the HSE, the Department of Health (Healthy Ireland), Creative Ireland, and the Arts Council was established in 2020 to explore options for collaborative work to further develop arts and health in the HSE.
Event
Irish Hospice Foundation: Skills Exchange in Letterkenny exploring creative practices
Irish Hospice Foundation is hosting two days of skills and information exchange in Letterkenny on 27 January and 9 February for those working with or interested in working with people affected by dying, death, grief and loss, using creative practices.
Event
Talk: Thinking sociologically about the arts in palliative care (in-person and online)
St Columba’s Hospice Care in Edinburgh is launching a series of talks in 2024 about the Arts in Palliative Care at their No.17 conference venue and online via Zoom.
Opportunity
Arts Act Funding 2024 – Wicklow County Arts Office
Wicklow County Arts Office established its funding schemes to support artists, festivals, communities, arts participation and art form development.
Opportunity
Job Opportunity: UCL Programme Coordinator – Mobilising Community Assets to Tackle Health Inequalities
University College London is seeking a Programme Coordinator (Health Inequalities) to work on ‘Mobilising Community Assets to Tackle Health Inequalities’, a UK Research and Innovation and Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) programme.
Opportunity
Kildare Arts Service: First Fortnight Award 2024
Kildare County Council Arts Service invites individual artists and/or collectives in any artform to apply for the First Fortnight Award 2024.
Opportunity
Kildare Arts Service: Arts, Health & Wellbeing Award 2024
Kildare County Council Arts Service invites individual artists and/or art collectives practicing in any artform to apply for the Kildare Arts, Health & Wellbeing Award 2024.
News
Let’s Pause – A reflection by artist Catarina Araújo
A cocoon evokes warmth, a safe haven, a nurturing space. Visual socially engaged artist Catarina Araújo designed her first arts and health project in 2021 with mental health professionals in Cork to explore their experiences of Covid-19.
Opportunity
Call for submissions: Engaging Dementia International Conference 2024
Engaging Dementia is accepting submissions for abstracts, interactive sessions, demonstrations, and posters for their 16th International Dementia Conference, taking place 8-9 May 2024 in Mullingar.
Opportunity
The Arts Council announces Arts Participation Bursary Award 2024
The Arts Council's Arts Participation Bursary Award supports individual professional artists working in any artform to develop their arts participation practice, including collaborative, community and socially engaged arts practices.
Event
First Fortnight 2024: Ireland’s Arts & Mental Health Festival
Every January, the First Fortnight festival challenges mental health stigma and promotes mental health wellbeing through national arts and culture events.
Opportunity
Creative Exchanges Course 2024: Planning and facilitating arts activities for older people
The Age & Opportunity Engage Programme team is hosting a new, two-day Creative Exchanges course designed for both activity co-ordinators working in residential or day care settings, and artists interested in engaging with older people in a care setting.
Opportunity
Funded PhD in Psychoanalysis and Culture at Ulster University, Belfast
Ulster University invites applications for funded interdisciplinary PhD projects in the area of psychoanalysis and culture.
Event
Friday Friends: Living Well with Dementia Art Exhibition
Friday Friends is an exhibition of art works produced by members of the Living Well with Dementia art group in Dublin South.
Opportunity
Artist in the Community Scheme: Development Support Role
The Artist in the Community (AIC) Scheme, managed by Create on behalf of the Arts Council, supports artists and communities to work together on innovative collaborative arts projects.
Event
Workshop: In-person training on disability equality for arts organisations
Arts & Disability Ireland will lead an in-person training session on disability equality, tailored for the needs of arts organisations who want to include artists and audiences with disabilities in what they do.
News
Creativity for Wellbeing Workbook
The Creativity for Wellbeing Workbook by Mental Health Ireland uses creative tools to guide you on your journey of self-discovery and wellbeing.
Event
Museum of Birds and Beasts: Talk at the Museum of Country Life
Artists Sharon Whooley and Tess Leak will discuss the Museum of Birds and Beasts, a project that took place in community hospitals across West Cork, at a talk in the National Museum of Ireland - Country Life.
Event
The Vitruvian: Uncovering the Layers of Cancer at Science Week 2023
The Vitruvian: Uncovering the Layers of Cancer is a body of work by leading Irish artist Vincent Devine, co-created with cancer researchers and a patient partner at the UCD Conway Institute, University College Dublin.
Event
Bealtaine Gathering 2023
Age & Opportunity’s Bealtaine Festival celebrates the arts and creativity as we age.
Event
Songlines: Engaging people with dementia through poetry and song – Webinar
Festival in a Van is hosting an online lunchtime seminar exploring the benefits, challenges, and key learnings of engaging people with dementia through the participatory arts.
Event
Vital Signs on the Road: Delivering Arts to Healthcare Settings – Webinar
Festival in a Van is hosting an online seminar exploring the transformative power of the arts in healthcare settings, with a focus on their Vital Signs tour with Poetry Ireland.
Opportunity
Visual artist sought for Helium Arts’ Outpatients Programme in Dublin
Helium Arts, the national children’s arts and health organisation, is seeking to employ a multi-disciplinary visual artist with a strong collaborative and inclusive arts practice with children and young people to join their Outpatients Programme in Dublin.
News
Dance Bualadh Bos – Short film funded by the artsandhealth.ie documentation bursary
Dance Bualadh Bos is an interactive dance performance created in collaboration with dance artists Ailish Claffey and Philippa Donnellan and older communities in County Kildare.
Opportunity
Experience 2023: An Introduction to Arts, Health & the Older Person
Experience: An Introduction to Arts, Health and the Older Person is a learning programme led by Age & Opportunity and Réalta, the National Body for Arts + Health in Ireland.
Opportunity
Music in Mind: NCH workshops for young people with kidney disease and their siblings
Are you a young person with end stage kidney disease who would like to have fun exploring your musical ability.
Event
Dementia & the Arts Sharing Session at dlr LexIcon
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council Arts Office is hosting a free sharing session for healthcare professionals and artists interested in dementia inclusive arts activity on 21 November at dlr LexIcon.
Event
Arts Health Research Intensive 2024 at Snape Maltings, Suffolk
The Arts Health Research Intensive training course provides a rich introduction to the evidence base around arts in health and fundamentals of evaluation and research.
Opportunity
Applications open: The Arts Council Arts Participation Project Award 2024
The Arts Council's Arts Participation Project Award supports initiatives in the field of arts participation (participatory, collaborative, community and socially engaged arts practices).
Event
How Do We Care? SoloSIRENs Festival 2023
SoloSIRENs is a participatory festival bringing theatre artists and South County Dublin communities together to consider and explore the nature of care in our society.
News
Creative Arts Hub for young people living with mental health difficulties in Louth and Meath
Áit Eile is a new creative arts hub for young people living with mental health difficulties in Louth and Meath.
Opportunity
Invitation to Tender: Arts, Disability and Older Person training review
Age & Opportunity and Arts & Disability Ireland are seeking tenders from suitably qualified individuals or organisations to carry out an Arts, Disability and Older Person training review as part of its joint Access initiative.
Opportunity
Galway Community Circus is hiring an Executive Director
Galway Community Circus has a vision for a future in which play, care and creativity are nurtured through circus education accessible to every child in Ireland.
Event
Free creative workshops for children with physical health conditions
Helium Arts, the national children's arts and health organisation, is inviting children and young people (ages 6-15) with lifelong physical health conditions to explore their creativity this autumn.
Opportunity
Helium Arts is seeking to employ a visual artist (part-time) in Dublin
Helium Arts, the national children's arts and health organisation, is seeking to employ a professional, multi-disciplinary visual artist with a strong collaborative and inclusive arts practice to support delivery of their Creative Health Programme in Dublin.
Event
Creative Brainwaves: Talks series exploring brain health and the creative arts
dlr Libraries, Arts and Community are partnering with the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI) for a five-part series of talks and workshops in October and November exploring how engaging in creative arts can improve your brain health.
Event
Our Vision Our Voice 2023
Our Vision Our Voice 2023 is the continuation of a six year collaboration between Mullingar Mental Health Association, HSE Mental Health Services (service users and Occupational Therapy staff) and visual artist Rosaleen Heavin.
Event
Celebrating National Breastfeeding Week with two exhibitions by Prof. Afif EL-Khuffash in Waterford
Neonatologist and Artist, Professor Afif EL-Khuffash, is showcasing his artwork celebrating breastfeeding mothers at two exhibitions in Waterford to mark National Breastfeeding Week 2023 (1 - 7 October).
News
Celebrating 20 years of Arts and Health Co-ordinators Ireland (AHCI)
Arts and Health Co-ordinators Ireland (AHCI) is a voluntary network of professionals who manage arts and health initiatives in Ireland. This year marks 20 years of the continued conversation, support and advocacy for arts and health practice nationally.
Opportunity
Job Opportunity: Operations Officer (Temporary Cover) with Create
Create, the national development agency for collaborative arts, seeks an Operations Officer on a temporary cover basis.
Event
West Cork Feel Good Festival 2023
West Cork Feel Good Festival takes place every autumn, organised by 49 North Street - a creative space in Skibbereen that promotes positive mental health and wellbeing - and a broad range of community partners.
Event
Making Connections: Arts + Health: Check Up Check In 2023
Bookings are now open for Arts + Health: Check Up Check In 2023, the annual national arts and health gathering led by Réalta, the National Body for Arts + Health in Ireland. This year's event is taking place in partnership with Creative Life at Mercer’s Institute for Successful Ageing (MISA).
Opportunity
Have your say! Pay and Conditions for Arts & Health Projects
Calling artists and creative producers! If you have worked on arts and health projects, now or in the past, we are inviting you to have your say to improve pay and conditions in the sector.
Opportunity
Music in Mind: NCH workshops for young people with kidney disease
Are you a young person with end stage kidney disease who would like to have fun exploring your musical ability.
Event
Where Art meets Science at Dr Steevens’ HSE Library: Culture Night 2023
Join the HSE National Librarian, Aoife Lawton, and library staff on Culture Night for half hour tours of Dr.
Event
Creative Interruptions: Moving arts in healthcare from pilot to mainstream
Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) Arts in Health Programme is hosting a panel discussion for Culture Night reflecting on the opportunities and challenges of embedding excellent long-term arts practice into healthcare settings.
News
Reading for Wellbeing
'Stories can be healing.
Event
Theatre Room: Theatre-making in the healthcare environment | Arts + Health Conversation Series 2023
Explore the possibilities for theatre-making in the hospital environment in this online conversation hosted by artsandhealth.ie as part of our Arts and Health Conversation Series 2023.
Event
Music & Care Healthcare Staff Workshops
Music & Health Ireland will present their Music & Care Workshop Day in Limerick and Meath this September.
Opportunity
Job opportunity: Marketing and Communications Executive with Music & Health Ireland
Music & Health Ireland is a not-for-profit organisation that provides high-quality music-making opportunities in educational, healthcare and community settings.
News
Joanne Ryan announced as recipient of artsandhealth.ie Documentation Bursary 2023
The national arts and health website is delighted to announce that theatre artist Joanne Ryan has been awarded our 2023 Documentation Bursary to produce a radio documentary about In Two Minds.
Opportunity
Artist in the Community Scheme 2023 – Round Two open for applications
The Arts Council’s Artist in the Community Scheme, managed by Create, offers awards to enable artists and communities of place and/or interest to work together on projects.
News
Music Speaks at Nursing Homes Week 2023
Nursing Homes Week is Ireland’s national celebration of nursing home care.
Opportunity
Deadline Approaching for Creativity and Change Certificate Course 2023/24
Creativity & Change at MTU is accepting applications for the 2023/2024 course, which begins in September.
Opportunity
Call for artists – Arts and Health artist mentoring and project residency in Offaly
Anam Beo invites professional practicing artists to apply to be a part of its mentoring programme.
News
Tea, Chats & Tunes: Connecting Creativity into the heart of Nursing Home Communities
Tea, Chats & Tunes is a collaborative partnership aimed at connecting residents in nursing homes with their families through the power of music, which has yielded significant findings in a recent evaluation.
Event
UCL Webinar: A WHO Resource on Arts Practice and the Ethics of Care
Are there ethical considerations that artists and arts practitioners keep in mind when working with communities where care is a central goal.
Opportunity
Introduction to Music in Healthcare and Community Settings
Music and Health Ireland, in association with Réalta, the National Body for Arts + Health in Ireland, is pleased to announce details of its forthcoming Introduction to Music in Healthcare and Community Settings training programme.
Opportunity
Grangegorman Histories: Public Funding Call
Grangegorman Histories is a public history programme of research and shared discovery of the Grangegorman site and surrounding communities.
News
Music and Health Ireland presents findings on healthcare staff workshops in Older Persons Services
The Musicians-On-Call programme, initiated by Music & Health Ireland and led by Limerick Arts Office in collaboration with Age Friendly Limerick and Healthy Limerick, is designed to bring the power of music into the lives of older adults in healthcare settings.
Opportunity
EESC Civil Society Prize 2023: Creative initiatives supporting people with mental health conditions
The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) has launched the fourteenth edition of its Civil Society Prize.
Opportunity
Age & Opportunity invites applications from artists for the Artists Care Exchange
Age & Opportunity is seeking applications from professional artists with an interest and background in the arts and older people in a care context, to participate in the second iteration of Age & Opportunity’s professional development arts initiative, the Artists Care Exchange (ACE).
Opportunity
Job Opportunity: Financial Accountant with Music and Health Ireland
Music & Health Ireland is a not-for-profit organisation that provides high-quality music-making opportunities in educational, healthcare and community settings.
Opportunity
Job Opportunity: Project Manager with Music and Health Ireland
Music & Health Ireland is a not-for-profit organisation that provides high-quality music-making opportunities in educational, healthcare and community settings.
Event
The Museum of Birds and Beasts comes to Ballydehob
The Museum of Birds and Beasts has been co-created by Tess Leak and Sharon Whooley with the residents of five community hospitals in West Cork.
Event
Galway International Arts Festival: Salthill Reverie at University Hospital Galway
Salthall Reverie, an exhibition celebrating a very special place, opens on the Arts Corridor at University Hospital Galway on 17 July 2023, presented by Saolta Arts and Galway International Arts Festival.
Opportunity
Vacancy: Youth Participation and Engagement Coordinator with Helium Arts
Helium Arts, the national children's arts and health organisation, is seeking an experienced and well-organised Youth Participation and Engagement Coordinator to develop and coordinate youth voice and influence in Helium Arts and beyond, in the context of arts and health, to support the advancement of the organisation’s Strategic Goals for 2023-2027.
Opportunity
RCPI Open Call: Climate and Health Exhibition
An open call has been issued for artists to submit a piece of visual art exploring the theme of Climate and Health for an exhibition at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland to be held in October 2023.
Opportunity
Invitation to Tender: Guidelines on Pay and Conditions for Arts and Health Projects
Réalta, the national body for arts and health in Ireland, invites applications from suitably qualified individuals / organisations to develop and produce guidelines on pay and conditions for arts and health projects.
News
Save the Date! Experience 2023: An Introduction to Arts, Health & the Older Person
Experience 2023: An Introduction to Arts, Health and the Older Person will take place on Thursday 7 December at the Centre for Arts + Health, University Hospital Waterford.
Opportunity
CHI Arts in Health Programme: Call for Expressions of Interest
The CHI Arts in Health programme is seeking expressions of interest from artists / designers / makers / creative collectives to apply to complete a research and development process which will lead to a comprehensive proposal for a permanent artwork for the New Children’s Hospital.
News
Save the NEW Date: Arts + Health Check Up Check In 2023 comes to Dublin on 25 October
Arts + Health: Check Up Check In 2023 will take place on Wednesday 25 October at Mercer’s Institute for Successful Ageing, St James's Hospital in Dublin.
Opportunity
Waterford Healing Arts issues Open Call for Artists, Musicians, Writers and Dancers
Waterford Healing Arts invites artists of all art forms, including visual artists, musicians, writers and dance artists, to apply to join its Artist Panel.
News
Health, Education and the Arts join together to launch innovative Arts for Health strategy in West Cork
The inter-agency Arts for Health Partnership Programme in West Cork today celebrated the launch of its innovative new arts and health strategy at Schull Community Hospital with a creative twist as local musicians and artists, including Liz Clark and Eva Coyle, joined together to mark the occasion with residents, staff, and visitors.
News
Catarina Araújo announced as recipient of artsandhealth.ie Emerging Artist Bursary 2023
The artsandhealth.ie emerging artist bursary affords time and space for an early career artist to reflect on their arts and health practice.
Event
Global Consultation – Arts Practice and the Ethics of Care
A global consultation on Arts Practice and the Ethics of Care aims to identify ethical considerations for arts practitioners when engaging in projects where care is a central concern and considerations for caring for arts practitioners when engaging in contexts of care.
News
The launch of IMMA Horizons: Supporting health and wellbeing across the life course
IMMA Horizons: Lifelong Creativity for the Curious, a new initiative aimed at supporting health and wellbeing through creative programmes and experiences, launched at IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) on 14 June 2023.
News
TILDA report presents findings on participation of older adults in arts activities in Ireland and associated health benefits
Older adults in Ireland who participate in arts, creative and cultural activities report higher quality of life and lower levels of depression, stress, worry and loneliness, according to a new report from the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) at Trinity College Dublin.
Event
Summer Camps 2023 with Helium Arts
Helium Arts, the national children's arts and health charity, is hosting free summer art camps specially designed for children and young people (aged 8-15) living with a lifelong physical health condition.
Opportunity
Applications open: Atlantic Fellows for Equity in Brain Health 2024/25
The Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI) is accepting applications for the 2024/25 Atlantic Fellows for Equity in Brain Health programme.
Event
Minding Creative Minds: Managing a Creative Career and Wellness Tools Workshops
Minding Creative Minds, Ireland’s mental health and wellbeing support programme for the Irish creative community, is hosting a workshop series on developing and managing a creative career and wellness tools for creatives and freelancers this May and June.
Opportunity
HSE Health and Wellbeing: Invitation to Tender – Evaluation of arts and health project
HSE Health and Wellbeing invites applications from suitably qualified and experienced consultants/ organisations to undertake an evaluation of the Irish Hospice Foundation and HSE Healthy Ireland Pause pilot initiative.
Event
Addiction-Recovery Arts Futures Conference (UK)
This one-day conference at Liverpool Hope University Creative Campus builds from the one day Knowledge Exchange Event Addiction Recovery Arts Network in 2022 which was organised by Dr Cathy Sloan at the London College of Music.
Event
Psychoanalysis meets virtual reality: One-day event (UK)
There is a significant amount of work happening at the interface between research on mental health and Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR). This one-day event hosted at the Institute of Group Analysis, London brings together artists, curators, clinical practitioners, patient advocates, academics and activists.
News
Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland launches new Arts Strategy
RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences has announced a new Arts Strategy aimed at further enhancing the role of art in enriching the learning environment at the university.
Opportunity
International Health Humanities Conference 2023: Call for Proposals
The 11th International Health Humanities Conference is being hosted by the University of Derby from 21-23 September 2023 on the theme of 'History and Practice of Human Care'.
Opportunity
Helium Arts is recruiting for a full-time Family Liaison
Helium Arts is recruiting for the full-time position of Family Liaison, primarily based in their Mullingar office with the option of up to two days a week remote working.
Event
Irish Hospice Foundation: Arts Roundtable Gathering
Everyone involved or interested in the Irish Hospice Foundation's arts and creative engagement programming is invited to attend the first Arts Roundtable Gathering on 15 June 2023 in Dublin.
Opportunity
Arts Council Agility Award 2023, Round 2
The Arts Council’s Agility Award is open to individual freelance artists and arts workers at any stage of their careers and is available across all art forms and art practice areas supported by the Arts Council.
Opportunity
Réalta, the National Body for Arts + Health in Ireland, seeks Communications Manager and Music Co-ordinator
Réalta, the National Body for Arts + Health in Ireland, has announced details of two new opportunities to join their team.
Opportunity
Arts + Health Bursaries 2023: Documentation Bursary and Emerging Artist Bursary
The national arts and health website is offering two bursaries in 2023, funded by the Arts Council and the HSE.
Event
Dementia Inclusive Gallery Tours at dlr LexIcon this May
The dementia inclusive gallery tours at dlr LexIcon, Dún Laoghaire, are specially designed for people living with dementia, and their caregivers.
Event
Dancing with Dementia – An exploration of dance as an intervention for people with dementia
Dementia Research Network Ireland (DRNI) is hosting a webinar on 9 May exploring dance as an intervention for people with dementia.
News
Literature Dispenser at St Luke’s Hospital, Dublin to celebrate National Poetry Day
To celebrate National Poetry Day on 27 April and Dublin International Literature Festival in May, Ema Staunton, Arts Co-ordinator of St Luke's Radiation Oncology Network, has introduced a literature dispenser, a novel way of sharing original short stories, poetry and comics with patients and staff.
Event
Cúirt International Festival of Literature: Poems for Patience 2023 at University Hospital Galway
Poems for Patience is a long-running series by Saolta Arts in which poems are exhibited on the Arts Corridor of University Hospital Galway and then displayed in waiting areas throughout Galway University Hospitals.
Event
Arts for Health Bealtaine Celebrations in West Cork
Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre is hosting a range of free events for Bealtaine, Ireland’s annual festival celebrating creativity as we age, as part of the Arts for Health Partnership Programme.
Opportunity
Helium Arts is seeking three new board members
Helium Arts, the national children's arts and health organisation, is seeking three new board members in the areas of Arts and Culture, Philanthropy and Fund Development, and Healthcare Policy and Management.
Event
Bealtaine Festival 2023 – Celebrating the arts and creativity as we age
Bealtaine, Ireland’s annual festival celebrating creativity as we age, runs throughout the month of May.
Opportunity
Job opportunity: Public Engagement Assistant – Arts, Health and Older People
Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre is recruiting for the role of Public Engagement Assistant - Arts, Health and Older People.
Opportunity
Artist in the Community Scheme Mentoring Award 2023
Create, the national development agency for collaborative arts, invites expressions of interest from collaborative socially engaged artists, or artists interested in this area of practice, who wish to avail of a focused period of mentorship to develop and consolidate their practice.
Event
Mental health within the dance world: Conversation with Steven McRae and Tim Arthur
On 17 May 2023, the Royal Academy of Dance in London will be marking mental health awareness week with a conversation between Tim Arthur, RAD Chief Executive and Steven McRae, Principal of The Royal Ballet and RAD Ambassador.
Event
Cocooning – Catch a Breath: Exhibition exploring the impact of Covid-19 on the mental health sector
Cocooning – Catch a Breath is an immersive and interactive sculptural exhibition arising from a socially engaged art project with artist Catarina Araújo and mental health professionals based in Cork City.
Opportunity
Call for visual artists: Online Creative Health Programme with Helium Arts
Helium Arts invites applications from professional, multi-disciplinary visual artists to deliver their Creative Health Programme to young people online.
Event
We will tell everyone! Learning about the experience of living with dementia through song
We will tell everyone! is a song written by a Public and Patient Involvement (PPI) group who have been collaborating with Lisa Kelly on her PhD research on telehealth music therapy for people living with dementia and their supporters.
Event
International Music and Ageing Seminar at MISA, St James’s Hospital
The Discipline of Medical Gerontology in the School of Medicine, Trinity College, Dublin, the Creative Life Hub in the Mercer’s Institute for Successful Ageing (MISA), St James’s Hospital, and Music & Health Ireland, in association with Bealtaine Festival, have partnered to deliver an international seminar to explore research, education and practice at the intersection between music and ageing.
Opportunity
Invitation to Tender: Artists Care Exchange (ACE) Facilitator
Age & Opportunity is seeking tenders from individuals with an interest and background in the arts and older people in a care context, to act as facilitator of the Artists Care Exchange (ACE).
Opportunity
Baboró artist opportunity: Primary school project exploring the impact of the arts on young children
Baboró International Arts Festival for Children invites Galway-based multidisciplinary artists to apply for Creating Space, a long-term project exploring the impact of the creative arts on young children's emotional and social health and wellbeing.
Event
A Geometric Progression: GRID Collective exhibition at Tallaght University Hospital
Tallaght University Hospital's opening exhibition of 2023 is A Geometric Progression, a collection of visual artworks by GRID Collective.
Opportunity
Call for Musicians: Soothing Sounds Music Programme at Tallaght University Hospital and CHI at Tallaght
Arts & Health at Tallaght University Hospital in collaboration with Children’s Health Ireland at Tallaght are inviting musicians to apply to be a Musician in Healthcare in TUH and CHI at Tallaght.
Event
The Mater Misericordiae University Hospital presents ‘Beyond the Surface: Art, Illuminating the Future of Surgery’
The Mater Misericordiae University Hospital will host an innovative multimedia art exhibition entitled ‘Beyond the Surface: Art, Illuminating the Future of Surgery’ from 25 - 28 March 2023 in the Old Historical Surgery Rooms (entrance on Eccles Street).
News
The launch of Réalta – National Body for Arts and Health in Ireland
Réalta, the national body for arts and health in Ireland, was officially launched on Friday 3 March 2023.
Event
BRAVE SPACES
Ageism, classism, racism, sexism, ableism, anti-traveller racism, heterosexism, homophobia, anti-semitism, gender dissonance… we live in an intersectional world with increasingly challenging environments to navigate.
Event
Psychoanalysis and the Culture-Breast: Noreen Giffney in conversation with Amanda Coogan
What happens to us emotionally and unconsciously when we listen to a song, watch a film, encounter an art object, or read a novel.
Event
Online movement classes for people with Long Covid, CFS and debilitating conditions
Gentle Movement for Relaxation is a free online movement class hosted by Uilinn West Cork Arts Centre for people living with long Covid, chronic fatigue syndrome, a debilitating condition or any kind of disability.
Opportunity
Invitation for Proposals: Traveller Wellbeing through Creativity 2023
Proposals are invited from Traveller organisations with experience of working with health/wellbeing and/or creative arts, and/or creative practitioners with experience of, or relevant to, working with Travellers, for the Traveller Wellbeing through Creativity 2023 initiative.
Opportunity
Age & Opportunity Creative Ageing Writing Bursary 2023
The Age & Opportunity Creative Ageing Writing Bursary aims to generate discussion, debate and knowledge about the growing arts and ageing sector in Ireland.
Event
Azure Tours at Highlanes Gallery 2023: Dementia-inclusive art viewing programme
The Azure art viewing programme at Highlanes Gallery in Drogheda is designed for people living with Alzheimer’s and Dementia, and their carers.
Opportunity
Helium Arts: Call for artists in Cork and Kerry
Helium Arts, the national children’s arts and health organisation, invites applications from professional, multi-disciplinary visual artists to join Helium's Artist Panel as Associate Artists.
Event
Creative Health Delivery for People with Complex Health Needs – Online Workshop
Delivering creative health activities to participants living with complex health or psychosocial conditions often requires specialised knowledge, skills, and support.
News
Drawing the Plants: Exhibition by Mary Lee Murphy at University Hospital Galway
Drawing the Plants is an exhibition by artist Mary Lee Murphy, opening at University Hospital Galway on 4 February 2023 to coincide with World Cancer Day.
Event
Creative Brain Week 2023: Innovation at the intersection of arts and brain science
Creative Brain Week explores and celebrates how brain science and creativity collide to seed new ideas in social development, technology, entrepreneurship, wellbeing and physical, mental and brain health across the life cycle.
News
Brigid, Our Spirit Stirring
A new film created by older people from Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Mayo, Monaghan and Sligo, with artist Marie Brett, launched on 1 February 2023 to mark St Brigid's Day.
Event
Good Vibrations: Making music in mental health settings – Well Festival Workshop
Waterford Healing Arts Trust is delivering a practical CPD workshop for musicians working in mental health settings, or interested in doing so, as part of the Well Festival of Arts & Wellbeing 2023.
Opportunity
Bealtaine Hero and National Arts in Nursing Homes Day Awards 2023
Applications are now open for Age & Opportunity's Bealtaine Hero Award and National Arts in Nursing Homes Day Award.
Opportunity
Calling Cultural Leaders: Applications now open for the 2023 Clore Fellowship
The Clore Fellowship is a unique programme of cultural leadership development that seeks to enrich and transform cultural practice and engagement.
Opportunity
Arts Council Artist in the Community Scheme 2023
The Arts Council’s Artist in the Community Scheme, managed by Create, offers awards to enable artists and communities of place and/or interest to work together on projects.
Event
Well Festival of Arts & Wellbeing 2023
Good Vibrations, Celebrating Love, Life and Magic, and Standing Shoulder to Shoulder: Well Festival of Arts and Wellbeing 2023 announces programme of music, movement, poetry, art and stories to make us feel good.
Event
The Museum of Birds and Beasts at LHQ Gallery
The Museum of Birds and Beasts has been co-created by artists Tess Leak and Sharon Whooley with the residents of five community hospitals in West Cork.
News
THE PAINT PROJECT: International Mapping Exercise of Arts Interventions in Renal Units
The PAINT project aims to undertake an international mapping exercise to identify the current provision of arts programmes for renal patients.
Event
What’s the Story? Care Home Resident Group Exhibition at An Táin Arts Centre
What’s the Story.
News
Minding Creative Minds receives government funding of €300,000 as part of the Safe to Create Programme
Minding Creative Minds is Ireland’s first 24/7 mental health and wellbeing support programme for the Irish creative community, delivered in association with Spectrum Life across the 32 counties and to Irish creatives overseas.
Event
Helium Arts February mid-term camps for children with physical health conditions
Helium Arts, the national children's arts and health organisation, is hosting free art workshops this mid-term to support children aged 8-12 with lifelong physical health conditions in living life to the full.
Opportunity
Speed Meeting for Slow Art: Matchmaking initiative for older person organisations and artists in Clare
Speed Meeting for Slow Art is a matchmaking initiative by Age & Opportunity, providing creative networking for artists and organisations who work with older people.
News
Wherever you go: Learnings from an emerging arts and health practice by Áine Rose Connell
Áine Rose Connell, a visual artist and poet, brings her background as a Speech and Language Therapist and her experience of collaborative poetry making to bear in Wherever you go, a written exploration of her emerging arts and health practice.
News
One Nation One Project: An Arts and Wellness Journey across the United States
One Nation/One Project is bringing together artists, local government, and health providers across the United States with the aim of fostering equitable recovery to the Covid-19 pandemic and creating healthier communities through the arts.
Event
Spring 2023 dance classes for people with Dementia and Parkinson’s: Dance Theatre of Ireland
Dance Theatre of Ireland's dance classes for people living with Parkinson's (Dancing Well with Parkinson's) and Dementia (Movement to Music inclusive of Dementia) are now open for registration for spring 2023.
Opportunity
Arts Council Agility Award 2023, Round 1
The Arts Council’s Agility Award is open to individual freelance artists and arts workers at any stage of their careers and is available across all art forms and art practice areas supported by the Arts Council.
News
Alfie’s Escapades: Waterford Healing Arts Trust hosts posthumous launch of stories by Liz McCue
Waterford Healing Arts Trust hosted the posthumous launch of Alfie’s Escapades, the second book by former renal dialysis patient Liz McCue, on 6 December, to mark Liz’s first anniversary.
Opportunity
Arts Council Arts Participation Bursary Award 2023
The Arts Council’s Arts Participation Bursary Award supports individual professional artists working in any artform to develop their practice in the area of participatory, collaborative, community and/or socially engaged arts.
Opportunity
Kildare County Council Arts Service: Arts, Health & Wellbeing Funding Awards 2023
Kildare County Council has announced two awards for 2023 to support creative projects and artists working in the area of Arts, Health & Wellbeing in the county.
Opportunity
Call for artists with experience of inclusive arts programming – dlr Arts Office Artist Panel
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council Arts Office is looking for artists / facilitators from all artform areas with experience devising and delivering workshops, to potentially work as part of dlr Lexicon Gallery’s Learning Programme and / or Youth Creative Engagement Programme.
Opportunity
Poems for Patience: Saolta Arts Poetry Competition 2023
Saolta Arts, the dedicated arts service for the Saolta University Health Care Group, is seeking entries for its annual poetry competition.
Event
First Fortnight 2023: Ireland’s Arts & Mental Health Festival
First Fortnight is Ireland’s annual Mental Health Art & Culture Festival, challenging mental health stigma and promoting mental health wellbeing nationally through art and culture.
Opportunity
Invitation to Tender – Evaluation of the Arts & Creative Charter for Older People Pilot
Age & Opportunity is seeking tenders from suitably qualified individuals or organisations to provide evaluation services for the Arts & Creative Charter for Older People Pilot Project.
