On Wednesday evening I was at the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh for the Luminate Reception. A range of artists and organisers involved in Luminate Festival events had been invited to celebrate Luminate’s 5th birthday and to launch a new publication about creative ageing in Scotland. ‘Late Opening: Arts and Older People in Scotland’ was commissioned jointly by The Baring Foundation and Luminate, and written by Andrew Eaton-Lewis. Through 16 case studies the report explores what ‘creative ageing’ means in Scotland and makes recommendations for long term strategic thinking and investment, stronger partnerships between the arts and healthcare sectors and more support for older emerging professional artists. Speaking at the Luminate Reception, Jeane Freeman MSP, Minister for Social Security in the Scottish Government said “there isn’t an age limit on creativity” and praised Luminate for its work in encouraging older people to be creative. Graham Reid from Creative Scotland emphasised the importance of Luminate’s focus on “arts for, by, with and about older people”. Keith Robson from Age Scotland welcomed the ‘Late Opening’ report’s focus on “frequently challenged stereotypes about what kind of art older people should be into”. David Cutler, Director of the Baring Foundation, said that since Baring started to focus on arts and older people in 2010, Luminate was “one of the best ideas we had”. David hoped the ‘Late Opening’ report would be an inspiration to arts organisations across Scotland. The Luminate Reception finished with performances by The Flames – a theatre group for participants aged fifty and over established by Tricky Hat Productions, whose debut performance I saw in the 2016 Luminate Festival – and the Vintage Chorus choir which is based at the Festival Theatre.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: ace, arts, England, health, politics, research, volarts, wellbeing
On Thursday I was at King’s College, London, for the launch of ‘Creative Health: The Arts for Health and Wellbeing’ – the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing Inquiry Report. The report was published in July but a formal launch event wasn’t possible then, so soon after the snap General Election. So on Thursday, King’s College London who worked with the APPG on its two-year Inquiry hosted this event in which Deborah Bull compèred a panel discussion on the report and its recommendations.
Lord Howarth, Co-Chair of the APPG, spoke about the potential of the arts in health and social care. He explained that the inquiry had organised 16 roundtables involving more than 300 people, importantly including service users, and had produced 10 specific recommendations.
Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt, from King’s College, said it was clear that engagement with the arts, particularly through participation, helps people get well and stay well. She said the inquiry had extended its definition of arts to include everyday activity – the stuff that happens behind closed doors in people’s homes and in communities.
The report says:
“Millions of people in the UK engage with the arts as part of their everyday lives. As we demonstrate in this report, arts engagement has a beneficial effect upon health and wellbeing and therefore has a vital part to play in the public health arena.” …
“When we talk about the arts, we include the visual and performing arts, crafts, dance, film, literature, music and singing. To this list, we add gardening … and the equally absorbing culinary arts.” …
“In this report, then, ‘the arts’ is used as shorthand for everyday human creativity, rather than referring to a lofty activity which requires some sort of superior cultural intelligence to access.”
Lord Howarth pointed out that the report’s 10 recommendations are not all directed at government. What is actually needed is a culture change in the health establishment. Recommendation 1 calls for a new national strategic centre to be established “to support the advance of good practice, promote collaboration, coordinate and disseminate research and inform policy and delivery” – but this should not be created by government.
Former Culture Minister, Ed Vaizey MP, Co-Chair of the APPG, said he had wanted to use the Government’s 2016 Culture White Paper to show the wide range of impacts the arts have but had faced a stunning lack of interest from Ministers in other Government departments. It was hard to get Ministers to engage beyond their silos.
Arts Council England Chief Executive, Darren Henley, said he was interested in seeing arts and health as more central to ACE’s new 10-year strategy but, for ACE, it has to be all about the arts: the Arts Council is about promoting excellence.
Interestingly, the APPG report says:
“On the one hand, it would be a disservice to participants to offer substandard arts activities under the banner of health and wellbeing, and the examples given in this report show high-quality work being undertaken in an avowedly inclusive way. On the other hand, in participatory arts activities with people who have not previously been encouraged to express their creativity, it is the quality of the activity, rather than the quality of output, that matters.”
Shirley Cramer, Chief Executive of the Royal Society for Public Health, said arts and health shouldn’t be a nice-to-have add-on: it should be mainstream.
You can download the APPG report from: http://www.artshealthandwellbeing.org.uk/appg-inquiry/
Cultural Playing Field 