Mapping of Initiatives on Culture, Health and Well-being

The European Framework for Action on Cultural Heritage reflects the common set-up for heritage-related activities at European level, primarily in EU policies and programmes. It aims to capture and scale-up the success of the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018, which aimed at encouraging more people to discover and engage with Europe's cultural heritage, and to reinforce a sense of belonging to a common European space. The Framework for Action complements the Council’s Work Plan for Culture 2019-2022.
The framework proposes around 60 actions be implemented by the European Commission in 2019 and 2020, which focus on five main thematic areas: (1) Cultural heritage for an inclusive Europe: participation and access for all (2) Cultural heritage for a sustainable Europe: smart solutions for a cohesive and sustainable future. (3) Cultural heritage for a resilient Europe: safeguarding endangered heritage (4) Cultural heritage for an innovative Europe: mobilising knowledge and research (5) Cultural heritage for stronger global partnerships: reinforcing international cooperation. Under Pillar 4, Cultural Heritage for an Innovative Europe, there is a cluster of actions that aim at fostering social innovation by reinforcing the role of civil society in cultural heritage governance. These will also promote further experimentation and scientific studies on how participating in cultural heritage activities impacts on people’s well-being and health.
The Framework was proposed by the European Commission and is supported by the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union, the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee. At national level, the European Commission invites Member States to draw up similar frameworks for heritage on a voluntary basis, to complement the Framework for Action.

Fresh Young Artists was devised for young people aged 13-18 years old. Alongside this they run their regular Fresh Little Minds mental health and resilience programme which involves thoughtful, fun and stimulating activities for children aged between 4 and 12. Both interventions are creative, trauma informed educational processes that support children and young people understand their lives, develop an understanding of how and why they are who they are, and learn skills and strategies for developing resilience, cultivating a growth mindset whilst developing and celebrating individual character strengths. Participants work with a professional artist and mental health facilitator to engage with mental health themes in a collaborative creative process, giving young people a high level of personal expression.

FRESH project was developed during the Street Art Fest Grenoble and was organized by the Space Junk Art Center with the mission to create street art murals in the hospital environment. The objective was to offer to the hospital space artistic content through murals and to promote the artistic practices within the hospital. A mediation component accompanied this project aimed at the general public, patients, visitors, health professionals and students, in order to make street art better known, with: artistic practical sessions in the hospital wards; meetings with the artists during the creative process; visits and a conference.

This temporary exhibition is part of the cultural program of the Museum of Medical Sciences from Grenoble, and traces the evolution of surgical practice in Grenoble hospital. Since 1992, the year of its creation, the museum began its action of conservation and valorisation of the medical and hospital heritage, in partnership with the CHU of Grenoble and with the support of the general council of Isère. As the main activity of the museum, the exhibitions gives concrete expression of the cultural dimension and the dissemination to the public of its missions of census, collection, and preservation of the medical heritage, and of the collective memory, often neglected or forgotten. These exhibitions, strongly rooted in local history, are based on the testimonies of the hospital's active and retired staff, and are built around the collections of various items gathered by the museum since its creation. At a time when the Grenoble University Hospital is inaugurating the new interventional platform, this exhibition, through objects, books and iconographic documents, makes it possible to measure the progress made and to appreciate the improvement in the conditions of care.

The art library carries out numerous actions around the works and artists of its collection for the health communities of the various care establishments available in the region:
1. At the Cadillac Hospital Center: in order to meet the objectives of raising the awareness of professionals and patients in the specialized hospital center, as well as the policy of opening up the establishment to the city, the art library exhibits two selections of 15 works in the establishment each year in a two-month cycle. Groups of patients from the Cadillac Center also come to the art library for selections of works and visits to exhibitions. From October 2021 to January 2022, the art library proposed to patients and caregivers to design an exhibition of 30 artworks from its collection, to be presented over the sites of Lormont and Cadillac. This exhibition was accompanied by educational booklets, workshops for patients and a meeting which was an opportunity for artists to present their films to other artists, patients and staff.
2. At the Regional Hospital Center of Bordeaux, Haut-Lévêque and Pellegrin sites: in partnership with the communication department of the University Hospital and the various teams of the Haut-Lévêque and Pellegrin sites, the art library brings together the nursing staff into sessions of artworks selections that are exhibited throughout the year in several departments: radiotherapy, hepato-biliary surgery, oncology, orthogenics. Booklets are made available in the departments to discover the artworks of the exhibitions. For children, booklets accompanying the artworks are specifically designed for each new exhibition (specific space at the reception).

This educational and cultural project was offered to a dozen between nine and twelve years old, from the Specialized Educational Service and Home Care (Sessad). Although they had different disabilities (learning disorders, learning disabilities, intellectual disabilities, autism), these children had the necessary resources to share the experience. They have become spectators, directors and programmers in the framework of the "Résistances" festival held in Foix. Whether behind the camera, on the camera, or on the big screen, all were able to express their opinions as well as their emotions. Initially, the children came into the role of programmers by choosing collectively the short films that would make up one of the "young audience" sessions of the festival. During the workshops, the children watched the short films in the conditions of a classic cinema session. At the end of these screenings, the children were able to express themselves: what did they understand, feel, preferred. Secondly, the children participated in co-creation workshops and the objective was to to make a short documentary film. They had to discover everything: the equipment (the camera, the sound boom), the visual components (the frame, the angle of the shot, movement) and sound (speech, sound effects).

In May 2017, six actors, video artists, authors and directors of the Parisian company Ici Même, involved the Blue-Cross care residency of Capdenac-Gare, took up an artistic challenge. For two weeks, the residents have participated in the co-creation of a video-guide, mixing fiction and anecdotes, to discover the little-known places of the establishment. The scenario was inspired of the Peter Pan syndrome that is the young refusal to grow up, to be trapped in the childhood, which was enriched by the feelings and anecdotes given by the seniors. The establishment opened its doors to the general public to take part in this playful visit.

L'échappée des rêves is a multidisciplinary artistic project that collects dreams, and presents them in the form of theatrical, choreographic, musical or visual performances. For the past three years, the artists of the Compagnie du Rêvoir have been collecting dream stories from patients in the Pneumology-Allergology Department of the Larrey Hospital, and then using this material to create escapes from the bedtime and present them into the original theatrical performances to the general public, combining words, music and dance.

A trip to Autistan is a musical and theatrical show performed by young people with psychological or autistic disorders within the frame of the care home, the Therapeutic Farm of Escala. They welcome young people aged 12 to 18 who suffer from more or less important psychological disorders. In the performance, the youngsters point out the difficulties of their health problems, but also the universal character of these difficulties in adolescence: communication, sharing, meeting, speaking, love, etc. The young people who participate in this project have various backgrounds, some of them were beneficiaries of social services, they lived in care homes, in order to promote the mix and the true integration of young people in difficulty. They are all supervised by artistic professionals and by professionals of Care, Education and Social Work.

APF Handicap France was organizing in 2018 an exhibition part of their Beauty and Handicap project on the invisible people with disabilities in order to raise awareness for the general public on this issue and the unseen difficulties. Multiple sclerosis, genetic diseases, hyperactivity or anorexia are some of these so-called invisible diseases highlighted by these photos. The exhibition is part of a series of yearly exhibitions organized by the organisation on different themes at the intersection between arts and health. More than 10 different exhibitions have been done in France since 2009.