What the Healing Culture Network offers
Healing Culture
Arts and culture have a positive effect on our health - mentally and physically - and thus on our quality of life: singing in a choir or playing a musical instrument, visiting an exhibition or experiencing a theater performance or just being creative: Arts and culture are essential! Not only the Corona pandemic has shown us this. What everyone can experience subjectively can be proven objectively: Numerous scientific studies of renowned institutes around the globe come to the same conclusion: The sensual as well as intellectually stimulating experience favors recovery and health maintenance in the sense of prevention. In a cultural context we can encounter in a new way - in community and ourselves: Healing Culture!
Healing Culture describes a field of action that releases synergies when health care AND culture cooperate. The initiative can come from different angles. Healing Culture refers to a whole ecosystem of different approaches and perspectives and spans a wide range of projects from healthcare (Arts in Health), culture and community (Culture for Health and Wellbeing, Social Prescribing), to research - especially in the context of neuroscience (Neuroarts): Healing Culture has many faces and encompasses the whole field!
Here are a few examples:
ARTS AND CULTURE IN HEALTH as a field in the hospital and care context offers many options: Beyond established art therapies, temporary events such as exhibitions and concerts create inspiration and encounters, as do improvised interventions such as clinic clowns. Arts in buildings and holistic planning concepts in the sense of Healing Environment open up sensual and stimulating spatial atmospheres as well as attractive working environments. Ultimately, arts and culture bring life to the hospital or care home - for patients, or residents, relatives, visitors and staff.
Culture on prescription ("Social Prescribing") describes medically prescribed and professionally accompanied cultural experiences such as museum visits or artistic activities in the field of painting, dance, music and singing. Offers focus on social participation and therefore usually take place in group situations.
Health Humanities is a subject area in education of health professions - especially in medical studies. The focus is on developing and strengthening a holistic self-image: soft skills in the context of empathy, communication, error culture and self-leadership are taught as well as sensory competencies, which are activated, for example, through an expanded, different way of seeing through art viewing or practical experiences in storytelling, dance or acting.
Healing Culture opens up innovative development spaces for holistic team, self and corporate management through encounters with the arts and culture.
Healing Culture globally and in Germany
Healing Culture has long been established in many parts of the world, especially in Great Britain, Scandinavia, Spain, North America and Australia, as a complementary and self-evident component of health care. Likewise, cultural institutions rely on Healing Culture as a strategic approach: with the expanded self-image, they become a place of well-being, inspiration and contemplation - resilience and prevention.
Internationally, expertise in research and practice has been growing rapidly in the context of Healing Culture since the turn of the millennium. Even though its effectiveness is now widely recognized, projects are increasingly being scientifically monitored and evaluated. In this way, we can understand the contexts and practical application possibilities ever more profoundly, identify fields of application and further strengthen acceptance.
Healing Culture thus brings art and culture into normal everyday life in many places and thus into the center of life. Healing Culture offers valuable potential for the individual as well as for society as a whole - for example, as a social catalyst in the context of social transformation. Healing Culture also pays off in economic terms: a British study from 2019 determined the Social Return on Investment (SROI) with a factor of 4: Healing Culture pays off!
Globally, Healing Culture has arrived: In late 2019, the WHO (World Health Organization) published the meta-study "What is the evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and well-being? A scoping review" presented an evaluation of 3,000 scientific studies and founded "The WHO Collaborating Centre for Arts & Health": Arguably the World's most important political health organization focuses on Healing Culture. Institutions and organizations in the context of Healing Culture have also been founded on a national and regional level in many parts of the world: As different as their orientation is - they create networking between health care and the cultural sector and strengthen the exchange of knowledge and experience between the professional public as well as politics and civil society.
In Germany, Healing Culture is currently rather terra incognita and (still) leads a niche existence. There are numerous lighthouse projects, but they lack visibility, often also continuity and professional networking among the actors and with the public. Currently, there are neither contact persons nor contact points for Healing Culture. This is where the Healing Culture Network wants to start and fill this void with life!
Now is the time for Healing Culture! The need and the awareness and the benefits have never been greater!
Insa Schrader
Head and Founder Healing Culture Network
Healing Culture Network
The Healing Culture Network is a platform that makes good practice and research visible and connects project participants and interested parties from the professional public and civil society.
Our vision is to mainstream Healing Culture: in health care and in the community as well as in the context of work and education. We bring Healing Culture into the center - into everyday life!
We advocate for social acceptance through professionalization and promote and celebrate the passion and verve of Healing Culture activities that are already successfully underway!
We, that is an interdisciplinary group of experts based in Germany from the fields of culture and health, who advocate for potentials and projects in the context of Healing Culture in this country!
You are curious about Healing Culture as a strategic approach for your organization, or you are already actively implementing projects in the sense of Healing Culture and are looking for exchange with like-minded people and further partners?
Interested in the Healing Culture Network? Please, get in touch and reach out!
Founding members Healing Culture Network
- INSA SCHRADER, Initiator Healing Culture Network, Berlin
- STEFFEN EGLE, Director mpk | Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern
- NATALIE ROTHMANN, Head of Healing Culture at mpk | Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern
- BENJAMIN KOSAR, Head of Art Education at the mpk | Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern
- UTE ZANDER, Lernprozesse, Wuppertal
- DR. ELKE BACKES, Project Management KURA Concepts, Bonn
- ISABEL GRÜNER, Head of Healing Art at the RBK, Stuttgart
- TORSTEN ANSTÄDT, Die Gute Stunde - Culture in Dialogue, Wiesbaden
- TANJA HERMANN, Head of Corporate Development and Communication, Bezirksverband Pfalz, Kaiserslautern
- DOROTHEE RUSTER-HEBEL, Community and Communication Coordination Office at the Pfalzklinikum, Kaiserslautern
- SABINE AREND, Mindfulness Trainer, Heidelberg
- DR. CHRISTOPH DAMANN, Director of the Cultural Department of the City of Kaiserslautern
- STEFAN SCHACK, Founding Member IPKG (Institute for Psychology, Arts and Society e.V.), Bremen
Contact
Represented by:
Healing Culture Network e. V. (i. G.)
Insa Schrader | Healing Culture
Schmargendorfer Str. 24a
D - 12159 Berlin