Overview

Should a doctor prescribe poetry-writing, or visiting an art gallery, as an alternative for medication? Medical professionals are doing so in a range of countries. The benefits of creative and community activity for health and wellbeing are increasingly being recognised globally. Could this be a case where Western medicine is catching up with practices First Nations communities have enacted for millennia? How are health and wellbeing impacted by creative art?

This two-day symposium brings together artists, health practitioners and end users to learn more about the relationship between creative art and wellbeing, with a special focus on poetry. The broad context for our discussions is the practice and processes of social prescribing: the prescribing of social and/or creative activities for people presenting with mental or physical ill health.

Sessions range across a discussion of current policy settings, papers on the relationship between poetry and wellbeing, panel-discussions among artists and community workers, along with hands-on poetry writing and creative arts workshops.

This event is recommended for health and arts practitioners, professional care givers, link workers and anyone interested or working in the dynamic health and arts space.