Art of good health and wellbeing

Join us for a rich conversation with acclaimed playwright Wesley Enoch, poet Selina Tusitala Marsh, nursing professor Brendan McCormack and host Claire Hooker (CREATE Centre). Explore how the arts are transforming health and education to improve care and wellbeing.

By better integrating the arts into the health system, we can radically enhance living and complement traditional medical interventions, building a community that is both resilient and caring. In this event, hear insights and provocations from academic and industry leaders including: 

• internationally acclaimed playwright and artistic director Wesley Enoch; 

• New Zealand's Poet Laureate Selina Tusitala Marsh;

• Brendan McCormack, Professor, and Head of School and Dean at Susan Wakil School of Nursing and Midwifery; and Academic Chair of Australia Cares at Sydney Policy Lab; and

• host Claire Hooker, Associate Professor in Health and Medical Humanities at Sydney Health Ethics, Associate Director (Health and Wellbeing) at CREATE Centre, and President of Arts Health Network NSW/ACT. 

As demand on our healthcare sector increases, there is a growing need for innovative approaches to support wellbeing amongst individuals, communities and the most vulnerable.

There's rising interest among clinicians, researchers, healthcare professionals, and policymakers in exploring the intersection of arts and health, and how innovations in arts-health can improve our healthcare outcomes. 

With its potential benefits in self-expression, creativity, and social connection, engagement in the arts, whether as a creator or an observer, can have profound impacts on individuals' emotional, psychological, and even physical states.

Since the release of a 2019 WHO report which identified the contribution that the arts may have in promoting good health and health equity, preventing illness, and treating acute and chronic, non-communicable conditions across the life-course, an evidence-based and scientific approach is being undertaken to establish the case for embedding the arts into healthcare.  

This event is presented with CREATE Centre.