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Art and wellbeing
The concept of ”Art and Wellbeing” is too frequently viewed through the paradigm of
art therapy, a field of work, as its title suggests, that has its foundation in a therapy
practice. Art therapy, however, is not the only paradigm through which to examine
the contribution towards wellbeing that arts practice and the artist can make; nor is it
the one through which I examine and position this work or myself as a studio artist in
this context. Instead, I place both within the model known broadly as “Arts and
Health” This term suggests a relationship between the arts and a positive position of
being healthy (as opposed to ill-health, being in therapy, being ill etc.). In its broadest
sense, this field incorporates art in hospitals, artists working with communities for
social inclusion and art projects conducted with vulnerable and disenfranchised
communities and individuals; and includes all art-forms, that is, visual and performing
arts, writing, circus and music.
Wellbeing is understood to incorporate more than a physical and mental sense of
health. Michael Wilson, a pioneer of what came to be the New Public Health
movement said: “It is difficult to know what we mean by wellbeing without first asking
the question, what is health for?” In answering his own question, he notes ”factors
which make for health are concerned with a sense of personal and social identity,
human worth, communication, participation in the making of political decisions,
celebration and responsibility. The language of science alone is insufficient to describe
health, the languages of story, myth and poetry also disclose its truth” (1975 qtd in
Lewis and Doyle 100).
Mike White, Director of Arts in Health at the Centre of Arts and Humanities in Health
and Medicine (CAHHM) at the University of Durham, England, citing Mulligan et al.
(2006), nominates the social and communal contexts of our lives as constituents of
wellbeing, saying it incorporates some intangible aspects of being human (in Lewis and
Doyle 100). The English study Invest to Save, (qtd in Lewis and Doyle 100) asserts
that wellbeing comprises two aspects: “hedonic wellbeing”, describing feeling good,
and “eudemonic wellbeing”, describing feeling alive and well. Having feelings of self-
worth, being valued, having close personal relationships and social networks are also
among the attributes of wellbeing (in Lewis and Doyle 142). In other words, the
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