Mapping of Initiatives on Culture, Health and Well-being

Adopted in May 2016, The Pact of Amsterdam launched the Urban Agenda for the EU, an EU-wide urban policy initiative concerned with multi-level governance: an umbrella for all urban policy initiatives. It enables cities, Member States, the European Commission and other key stakeholders to come together to jointly address urban issues within the regulatory framework of the EU and provide the EU with more on-the-ground data. Most actions under the Urban Agenda for the EU are delivered through partnerships, each made up of a variety of members. The aim of the Partnership on Culture/Cultural Heritage is to enable municipalities, Member States, EU institutions and interest groups, NGOs and Partners from the industry to work together on an equal footing to find solutions that improve the management of the historic built environment of European cities, promote Culture, and preserve the quality of urban landscapes and heritage. By increasing their knowledge about current and future trends/challenges linked to Culture and social inclusion (this can be about intercultural dialogue, about participation to Culture, about participatory governance of Cultural Heritage etc.), cities will develop policies that have more impact on the targeted population. There will be one peer learning visit (online or on-site, depending on sanitary conditions allowing traveling or not) to test the methodology. The visit will focus on a specific topic linked to Culture and social inclusion. Topics that could be covered during the peer learning activities (to be decided with members of the Partnership) include, among others, also: developing new Partnerships at local level within the Culture sector and other sectors, including social inclusion, health and wellbeing, migration and integration The final scope is to provide a specific tool that can be used also by other initiatives at EU level, specifically dealing with the topics mentioned above.
The Partnership has several strategies, including one for enlarging and enhancing the role of cultural urban services to strengthen the well-being of citizens (Strategy 5).

In 2020, the Rijksmuseum designed a project for social purposes to celebrate the 414th birthday of Rembrandt, whose Night Round continues to be restored in front of the public. They performed the #NightWatchOnTour, in which they created a digital replica of the iconic Dutch work and took it to a nursing home in Amsterdam. With pandemic, this at-risk population is banned from leaving their homes. But if the users of the residence cannot access the museum due to health restrictions, the institution is concerned with bringing the culture to all those who need it.

VR Days Europe brings together professionals from the AV sector, technology, education and business with the following objectives: To unite the European Virtual and Augmented Reality community; To inspire creative minds and increase their capacity to develop new works with VR/AR/MR; To drive business forward and facilitate Business to Business exchanges in EuropeThe VR Days format is unique: focusing solely on VR content, bringing creators together with multiple sectors and investors to boost the content creation and business in this emerging industry. The project has a unique approach: it actively stimulates the production of quality VR content, because the success of the technology relies on content creation. Secondly, it has not only an international but also a much needed cross-sectoral focus, inviting professionals from the creative sector, health care, science, education and enterprise because VR also affects these industries. This opens up new markets and business models for the AV sector, not only across borders but also across sectors.
In addition to these 4 editions, in 2021 the project included a day dedicated to ‘Science, research and healthcare’ about the medical potential of XR. Following the WHO World Mental Health Day, ITW focused on how immersive technologies can help to beat the port-pandemic mental health crisis. How MedTech startup ecosystems like in Heidelberg embrace XR and how immersive technologies, such as those applied by the Amsterdam Skill Center, can be used to fight the projected shortfall of 18 million health workers by 2030 (WHO) and find out the latest insights on the magic combination of psychedelica and VR.

Art4med is a cultural cooperation project that fosters encounters between art practices and biomedical health research. Art4med is a 2 years project (2020-2022) centered on the intersection of art, health, and biomedical research. It intends to foster these encounters between art practices and biomedical health research in a fast-changing societal environment, under the influence of big data, material and technical innovation. It addresses the exclusion of marginalized groups from healthcare, global migrations, collapses in environmental health and the need for radical care in these pandemic times. They propose to form a consortium: 5 partners from 5 EU countries will unite around their common interest to experiment and disseminate collaborations between hands-on medical humanities and investigative art methodologies. In 2021 and 2022, the consortium will propose 5 residencies, 5 symposiums, talks, co-creative methodology workshops, online collaborations, hands-on sessions, exhibitions, and a final publication and festival in Paris.
Art4med aims to:
- Build-up interdisciplinary transnational cooperation between artists and the health sector in order to support and produce exploratory artistic projects that promote access to healthcare;
- Open new fields of creative experimentation for artists to challenge the current status of science and healthcare;
- Enable cross-fertilization and sharing of knowledge, technologies, skills and experiences among artists, researchers and open/citizen science communities, and provide conditions for fruitful creative exchanges.
- Produce open and transferable resources to better understand co-creative processes between art, science and technology;
- Raise audience awareness of the role of artists in opening disruptive paths that significantly tackle societal and technological challenges in access to healthcare, beyond the scope of existing art-science peer communities.
During 2021-2022, Art4med takes the form of extended residencies, a series of workshops, seminars, and exhibitions in Finland and across Europe. Art4med is a collaboration between Makery (FR), Waag (NL), Laboratory for Aesthetics and Ecology (DK), Bioart Society (FI), and Kersnikova (SI). It is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. In 2021 and 2022, the consortium will propose 5 residencies, 5 symposiums, talks, co-creative methodology workshops, online collaborations, hands-on sessions, exhibitions, and a final publication and festival in Paris.

Dance & Creative Wellness Forum aims to bring together dance institutions, practitioners, healthcare innovators, health insurers and policy makers in a lively exchange of dialogue, dance experience and ideas. The first edition of the Forum was in 2016 and annually the event create spaces for a structured dialogue and brainstorming opportunities; they bring key stakeholders together to move the field of dance forward in order to address global health and well-being challenges.

Strategic policy document adopted in 2018, which provides the framework for cooperation on culture at the EU level. It builds on the 1st European Agenda for Culture launched in 2007 ”to address current societal challenges through the transformative power of culture”. The New Agenda establishes enhanced working methods with Member States, civil society organisations and international partners. It has 3 strategic areas, with social, economic and external dimensions.
The social dimension is where ”well-being” is explicitely mentioned in the policy text. Aimed at harnessing the power of culture and cultural diversity for social cohesion and well-being, the Agenda seeks to: ”foster the cultural capability of all Europeans by making available a wide range of cultural activities and providing opportunities to participate actively; encourage the mobility of professionals in the cultural and creative sectors and remove obstacles to their mobility; protect and promote Europe's cultural heritage as a shared resource, to raise awareness of our common history and values and reinforce a sense of common European identity.

The strategical policy document acknowledges that cultural participation improves health and well-being and cites research that confirm that cultural access is an extremely important catalyst for psychological well-being, preceded only by the absence of disease. Policy collaboration under the New Agenda is currently supported from 2021 by Creative Europe and other relevant programmes under the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027.

The Unforgettable Van Abbe programme consists of interactive tours for visitors dealing with Alzheimer’s disease. Looking at art in an interactive way offers them the opportunity to express themselves and to engage in a dialogue with their environment. The programme focusses on the positive, creative and inspiring aspects, not on the disease. During an Unforgettable tour, participants are seeing artworks together and they are engaging in conversations. By sharing stories, memories, associations and ideas, the participants bring the artworks to life.

Switch2move is one of the leading organizations that is committed to the well-being of older people. Switch2move wants to create a better daily life for the elderly and in particular for people with health issues such as dementia and Parkinson. Switch2move is committed to these groups by offering combined exercise programs with the aim of improving: physical functions, thinking ability and general health. Switch2move gets people moving, using their own strength, so that strengths, weaknesses and needs are expressed in the movement. Self-direction and own strength are not self-evident for everyone and people are guided in this with the help of dance and music. The active aging programs lead to physical, mental and social improvements and caregivers see the effects - more fun and connection, less stress.