Project title
Description of initiative
The NEFELE Festival, the first European Mental Health and Arts Festival, was an impressive collection of mental health themed art events with 600 artistic participants from 23 countries. It was a small-scale European cooperation project aiming to strengthen all kinds of artistic creation connected with the field of mental health with the goal of broadening the cultural activities for the benefit of artists and enriching therapeutic procedures for the benefit of patients and society as a whole. NEFELE project is the first step towards the establishment of a European Network of Art Festivals on Mental Health.
The project had its focus in the following, prioritised, objectives:
- Organisation of the first European pilot Art Festival for Mental Health in Athens, in October 2016.
- Establishment of the European Network Art Festival for Mental Health and organising its Founding Congress in Athens, in January 2017.
- Support of four (4) local festivals organized by the project partners in their countries
- Development of tools for the professional support of the artists
- Networking and promoting the idea of the art festival that focuses on mental health throughout the EU
Further information on the initiative
Themes: Culture and...
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Cultural field
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Results, benefits, impact and lessons learnt
The beneficial relationship between the Arts and mental health has been well documented, the NEFELE festival is working to develop this relationship further. Research has shown that a wide number of mental health arts organisations exists within the EU, with different approaches and methods. It has however been noted that some countries have a lower number of such organisations, this is something that the NEFELE project has the potential to change.
Lessons learned:
What worked well & facilitators to implementation:
- Involving a wide variety of groups which could lend their strengths to the project. This helped to raise our profile.
- The public's interaction with the variety of events was extremely strong and it was evident that the arts are an appealing and appropriate vehicle to employ in order to create conversations around mental health.
- Sixty-three volunteers played a huge role in implementing this practice.
What did not work & barriers to implementation:
- Funding - Funds are needed for the team to lead the project, to produce events, and to promote events. The host organisation contributed 40% so it was a pretty big amount to cover for such a big event.
- Profile - This was the first edition of the European festival. It required creating an entirely new brand and promoting it throughout Europe, which is difficult since funding is needed for the different tasks within the project.