A person touches another person's back gently with hand.
In ARTHEWE, King’s College London experimented with contact improvisation and visual art workshops to give students form different disciplines equal opportunities to experience a different way of acquiring knowledge. Photo: King’s College London.

In the ARTHEWE project the project team worked with seven Intellectual Outputs (IOs).

IO1 – Publication Towards Creative Wellbeing – Codeveloping Multimodal Pedagogical Approaches in Higher Education
Coordinator: Turku University of Applied Sciences, Finland

The project publication gathers together a rich variety of pedagogical approaches explored and codeveloped by the ARTHEWE team members and students. The publication consists of seven articles.

The articles are:

  • Historical and musicological perspectives on arts in relation to health, aesthetics, and creativity. Written by David Thyrén & Eva Bojner Horwitz.
  • Pedagogies for flourishing in uncertainty and complexity –Exploring leadership, trust, and conflict resolution with clinical undergraduates via arts-based learning approaches. Written by Flora Smyth Zahra.
  • Mapping and conceptualising the key competences of arts & health professionals. Written by Liisa Laitinen & Liisa-Maria Lilja-Viherlampi.
  • The HeArtS (Health, Arts and Sustainability) platform –Building a sustainable and healthy working life with the arts. Written by David Thyrén & Eva Bojner Horwitz.
  • Piloting the Photovoice practice in the learning process to explore well-being and support community development. Written bu Ieva Petkutė & Simona Karpavičiūtė.
  • Process of Professional Growth in Creative Wellbeing Studies. Written by Pirita Juppi, Ilona Tanskanen & Liisa-Maria Lilja-Viherlampi.
  • Creative methods in health promotion and evaluation. Written by Evanthia Sakellari et al.

The publication can be accessed and downloaded here: 
Towards Creative Wellbeing – Codeveloping Multimodal Pedagogical Approaches in Higher Education

IO2 – Professional Growth in Creative Wellbeing. Expertise growth and growing in professional identity
Coordinator: Turku University of Applied Sciences, Finland

IO2 focused on developing the contents and curriculum of the MA programme Creative Wellbeing in international collaboration. In the MA programme professionals from the arts, culture, social and health care sectors study together in interprofessional group 1,5–2,5 years to become experts in the field of creative wellbeing. The programme was first launched 2020.

In ARTHEWE Turku UAS developed three course modules in the MA programme: 1. Creative Wellbeing as a Competence (5 ECTS), 2. Contexts of Creative Wellbeing (5 ECTS) and 3. The Process of Professional Growth as a Professional of Creative Well-being (5 ECTS).

The first two modules focus on the key expertise and competences of the professionals working in the field of creative wellbeing. The third module focuses on the autobiography process as a professional of creative wellbeing. In the process the students explore their professional growth and capabilities with arts-based and embodied methods, keep a reflective diary during their studies and make a digital career story using digital storytelling methods.

The aim of the collaboration with the ARTHEWE partners was to examine the use of art-based and creative methods and embodied learning approaches in supporting the students’ personal professional growth and wellbeing when exploring the key competencies needed in the field of creative wellbeing.

IO3 –  Sustainable and Healthy Working Life – Engaging through Music and other Creative Activities
Coordinator: Royal College of Music, Stockholm

The aim of IO3 was to build a sustainable health platform “Health & Arts & Sustainability” (HeArtS) for students, teachers and researchers. The following steps have been used to build the platform:

1. Focus group interviews with first grade music education, music therapy students and master students; building an interview guide.

2. Deep interviews with students in music education programs. The following research question was used: “How do students understand creativity and its relation to sustainable growth and healthy work?”

3. Creation of the platform.

Content:

  • Promoting well-being and health through creative methods in educational programs
  • Social sustainability and personal sustainable professional development
  • Meta-health knowledge for musicians in working life
  • Art-based and embodied methods that strengthen health
  • Understanding of concepts of health and well-being from a performative and aesthetic point of view

The research within HeArtS generated methods for health development which show that the combination of music and other artistic modalities helps to transform our “mind-sets” in a direction towards a more consciously sustainable healthy quality of life, in line with Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development.

An historical overview was also made during the process, on the following themes: aesthetic, ethics, arts and health focusing on the following episodes: pre-historic, historic, modern and postmodern time. This overview helps us link sustainable growth as a professional of music, arts and well-being into the health platform HeArtS.

IO4 – Supporting Mental Health with the Arts: A ten Step Programme
Coordinator: Royal College of Music, Stockholm

Arts and health were clearly interwoven as a red thread in this IO4 by a “learning by doing” 10-step program concept building. Embodied knowledge from guided body experiences will lead to a more conscious body awareness of preventing and sustaining mental health. Engaging with the arts and creative activities can be beneficial for both mental and physical health and there is a lot of robust evidence in arts supporting mental health and well-being which we use in our 10-step program.

The program so far has supported students coping with stress and anxiety (effects of students’ burnout, overwork and negative stress are well documented). The role of discomfort has been discussed during the 10-step program building and described as an enabler of change-making and space-making for health as well as for creativity. We have also acknowledged the importance of emotions and emotional processing for change, decision-making and action in relation to mental health prevention.

IO5 – Health and Well-being Promotion through Creative Methods
Coordinator: University of West Attica, Greece

The aim of the IO5 was to add creative strategies and approaches for health and wellbeing promotion for different target groups in the population. During the project a 2 ECTS course module Health and Well-being Promotion through Creative Methods was codeveloped and piloted with the partners. The postgraduate students gained experiences and knowledge how to apply creative methods and approaches to different health and wellbeing promotion interventions at individual and community level. An important part of piloting the course was also developing the evaluation of the course by using creative methods.

IO 6 – Arts and Well-being for Personal and Professional Growth
Coordinator: The Global Brain Health Institute (Trinity College Dublin), Ireland & San Francisco

The fellows who are on-boarding the “Equity in Brain Health” leadership programme engage in challenging advocacy work globally. While we often focus on supporting the brain health of our communities, we too frequently overlook the need to support the health and well-being of ourselves so that we can stay productive, engaged, and thriving as fellows.

The Intellectual Output of the Global Brain Health Institute addressed the need to support the well-being of the fellows though application of arts-based approaches. The project team looked into how to use creativity to support relationship development also to develop well-being skills – gain emotional awareness; to increase body awareness; learn skills to take better care of yourself.
The programme was led by prof. dr. Brian Lawlor, dr. Eoin Cotter and senior fellow Ieva Petkutė. Meaningful contributions were provided by other senior fellows, including dr. Anne Browning, Karin Diamond and dr. Miriam Galvin.

IO 7 – Pedagogies for flourishing in complexity
Coordinator: King’s College London

This pilot focused on somatic practices, expression and experiential leaning. The aim was to equip students to operate well professionally and personally and to support sustainable practice. The content was designed to build self-awareness, leadership, conflict resolution, situational awareness, critical and creative thought.

Between October and November 2021 we ran six movement sessions based on contact improvisation and two visual arts workshops in London galleries. In the movement sessions students were invited into a physical exploration of their bodies, the space, connection with others and to an improvisational and creative mindset. In the arts workshops students explored uncertainty, making and unmaking through sculpting and guided observation.

We aimed to give equal opportunities to students form different disciplines to experience a different mode of acquiring knowledge. We hope that our findings will support the integration new arts-based modules into core curricula across all King’s faculties.