Join our webinar: Thursday 12 June, 6:30-8:00pm AEST | Online

Register here: CREATE Experts: Arts and Health Policy in Australia

It’s breathtaking to reflect on the growth of arts and health over the past decade – particularly the 11 years since the creation of Australia’s national Arts and Health Framework in 2014, the first major policy milestone in our sector. In just over a decade we’ve gone from trying to articulate why arts are important for health to having an extensive international evidence base, major research centres, and widespread recognition for the field.

Over these 11 years, there has been a proliferation of arts and health programs across settings, contexts, and populations and the emergence of significant research programs and arts health organisations in Australia and globally. Alongside these triumphs, we’ve also grappled with ongoing concerns and critiques, particularly how to sustain and support the creative communities and practitioners on whom all our work depends. (We highly recommend this wonderful conversation with Prof Genevieve Dingle exploring some of this in relation to social prescribing).

Following the 2016 NSW Health and the Arts Framework, and its 2024 Refresh; and after Creative Australia’s 2021 Arts, Creativity and Wellbeing policy initiative, informing the national cultural policy Revive (2024), it is time to take stock of where we are with arts and health policy – and where we might steer next.

Join Our Expert Panel

Susan Templeman MP – Federal Member for Macquarie and Special Envoy for the Arts
Brigitte Uren – Program Director Arts, NSW Health Infrastructure
A/Prof J.R. Baker – Chair, Australian Social Prescribing Institute of Research and Education (ASPIRE)
Kerri Glasscock – Director of Sydney Fringe, Chair of Creative Communities Council, incoming Executive Director at Create NSW

Key Questions We’ll Explore

  • How can we promote equitable access to arts and cultural activities that support health?
  • What possibilities exist for reimagining funding models for arts and health initiatives?
  • What role does evidence play in policy development, and what evidence should we prioritise?

The session will feature focused presentations followed by interactive Q&A, facilitated by AHNNA President A/Prof Claire Hooker (University of Sydney) and AHNNA Vice President Prof Katherine Boydell (Black Dog Institute).

The webinar is a collaboration between Arts Health Network NSW/ACT (AHNNA), the CREATE Centre, and the HArts of Care node at the Sydney Policy Lab, setting the stage for our leadership and policy capacity building event on August 27 – save the date!

Bring your questions as we explore how arts might be approached as a health behaviour and examine how the approach sits with community arts and community cultural development work.

Register now and join us in carrying the vital work forward together.

Acknowledging the Pioneers:

We would also like to take a moment to appreciate the incredible dedicated work of so many people who have enabled the growth in our sector to occur – working for decades in communities and in health services, and more recently, undertaking the quiet support and advocacy that has enabled our sector to grow, become more daring, flourish, push forward, experiment, and gain strength. People like Helen Zigmond, who created the first arts program in the Sydney Children’s Hospital at Westmead; Margret Meagher, whose annual international arts and health conferences provided an extraordinary catalytic investment in the sector by naming it, connecting those in it, and connecting Australia to the major drivers overseas; the Arts and Health Consortium in Western Australia who authored an early landmark report on arts in hospitals; and Christine McMillan, whose quiet work with Indigenous people and regional communities build arts and health initiatives in many of these centres. These represent just a tiny fraction of the huge volume of amazing work undertaken around the country. We know so many people have benefited from your work. We look forward to your company in carrying the work forward together.

Claire Hooker

Arts Health Network NSW/ACT (AHNNA) President, 2025.

Photo: Elyssa Sykes-Smith, featuring art produced at drop-in body mapping workshops at One Farrer Place in Sydney. This project is a partnership between Black Dog Institute (Arts-based Knowledge Translation Lab) and Dexus.

 

Posted by Elyssa Sykes-Smith.
  • Dr Claire Hooker is Senior Lecturer, Health and Medical Humanities; Director, Bioethics program, Sydney Health Ethics, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney
  • Elyssa Sykes-Smith is a multidisciplinary artist, educator and climate psychology researcher, and Media Officer at AHNNA