Using Arts and Health in Changing Times (Research Week 2020)

Through personal engagement, work in the community, and in targeted therapeutic contexts, the creative arts and culture are powerful tools for enhancing health and wellbeing. Western Sydney researchers are collaborating to explore how we use the creative arts as a means to build connectedness to people and place in these changing environments, heightened by the recent global events of 2020. This work ranges from questions understanding the broader mechanisms behind arts engagement, to working alongside communities and organisations using the arts to cope with daily life. We would like to share brief reports of recent WSU research in arts and health and provide a networking opportunity to discuss how we can collaborate with arts and cultural organisations in Western Sydney. Together, we can further the evidence and opportunity to demonstrate that creative arts and culture is pivotal for health and wellbeing, transforming the conversation from staying alive to truly living.