SEARCH RESULTS

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, incumbent President of the United States Conference of Mayors, has invited mayors from across the country to take inspiration from Louisville's acclaimed song "Lift Up Louisville" and facilitate the production of a unique song to uplift and represent their own cities. Each song demonstrates the musical diversity of the region, and include contributions from well-known natives. The City Song Project was developed in partnership with Americans for the Arts and with support from the National Endowment for the Arts. Participating cities include Chicago, Detroit, Reno, Austin, Charleston, Oklahoma City, New Orleans, and Burnsville.

This participatory research project involves creative practitioners in an exploration of how they navigate the successes and challenges of delivering arts, health and wellbeing activities to individuals with challenging conditions or complex health needs, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine are looking at the experiences of creative facilitators as they interact with workshop or program participants; facilitator skills, training, and experiential professional development; personal facilitator responses to their work, how they care for themselves, and what kinds of individual and organizational support they need; and how arts, health and wellbeing practice has changed during COVID-19, and how facilitators and participants are responding.

Following the death of her uncle from COVID-19, artist Heather Schulte created Stitching the Situation in an attempt to chronicle the COVID-19 pandemic in the US and memorialize those lost. Using data from the World Health Organization and the John's Hopkin's Coronavirus Resource Center, Heather began stitching squares in blue and red thread, with blue stitches representing each new confirmed case of COVID-19 and red stitches representing each death. The project has evolved to include the efforts of in-person and remote collaborators - since Summer 2020, Heather has compiled and mailed stitching kits across the country to others who wish to contribute, with each person being assigned a different day's data of positive COVID-19 cases and deaths. The project has received a Special Projects grant from Fiber Art Now and a Creative Neighborhood grant from the City of Boulder to support this work.

This article in The Lancet explores the impact of Theatre of War for Frontline Medical Providers, a project created in collaboration between Johns Hopkins University, the Berman Institute of Bioethics, and Theatre of War Productions which aims to address the experience of medical providers who work at the frontlines of the fight against COVID-19. The initiative uses classical Greek tragedy to reflect the perspectives of healthcare workers, creating a venue to share and process the emotional toll of their work while promoting a sense of community and connection. Plays are performed via Zoom, with casts that include acclaimed actors such as Jesse Eisenberg and Frances McDormand.

Researchers from Chung-Ang University in Seoul, South Korea examined the relationship between leisure activities, psycho-social health, and engagement in behaviors that prevent COVID-19 transmission. An online survey was administered to a large sample of South Korean citizens who indicated that they did participate in leisure activities, with subsequent questions seeking to determine what types of leisure activities correlated to positive health behaviors. Notably, the findings showed that individuals who participated in cultural and arts activities were more likely to engage in preventative behaviors. Other findings explore trends related to gender, level of social engagement, and more.

An international team of 40 music neuroscience researchers, music education specialists, and healthcare professionals collaborated to create a musical mnemonic for proper hand-washing technique to the tune of Frére Jacques for children around the world. The song includes all six WHO hand-washing steps and has been translated into 28 different languages. The article explores the importance of proper hand-washing technique in reducing the spread of COVID-19, as well as the capacity of a familiar song such as Frére Jacques to quickly and effectively disseminate health information. All 28 versions can be heard here

The COVID-19 Social Study, run by University College London, explores the effects of the virus and social distancing measures on adults in the UK during the outbreak of COVID-19. Data from the study is analyzed in real time and results are made available each week. Sixteen reports have been published so far, analyzing experiences of boredom, financial stress, worry about others, sense of meaning, and more. UCL researchers will soon be incorporating data from a US cohort into their findings, as well as data on how the arts have helped to curb the negative psychological effects of the pandemic and social distancing.

This article explores the potential psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children, outlining four phases adjustment and the potential mental health issues that may arise through each. The authors explore the capacity for the arts, specifically music, to curb these negative mental impacts, pointing to music's capacity to alleviate anxiety, boost immune response, and enhance children's capacity to emotionally regulate, amongst other benefits.

Publication Source: Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy Videos of Italians singing from their balconies have drawn the world's attention, a spontaneous demonstration of solidarity under the pressure of quarantine induced isolation. Now, researchers Elisabetta Corvo and Walter De Caro explore the psychological benefits that fuel this collective music-making. A multifaceted coping strategy, group singing reduces loneliness, increases social cohesion, and creates an experience of emotional exchange.

“Think about a single place in Miami, where you have been in the past…” This simple direction begins the multidisciplinary Spanish artist García’s instructions for I Remember Miami, a work that invites everyone to take part in a collective recording of our vibrant city, currently on pause. While we remain in our homes, I Remember Miami asks us to recall small, specific details of spaces in the city that have made lasting impressions and to record ourselves walking through those spaces in our minds. Participants may also submit a photo of their present surroundings or choose another photograph that represents the place remembered. The artist will collect the audio files and photographs to compile a polyvocal archive of memories of the expansive, richly varied, and indelible place where we live. This gathering of past remembrances, present sights, and evocative images will constitute a time capsule for the future, documenting this unique time in Miami’s history.

Painting Us Forward©, a project by artist and educator Jennifer Williams, was recently launched to give voice and vision to small businesses who have been impacted by the restrictions and closures related to COVID-19. The project is an expanding partnership that communicates hope and resilience through visual storytelling. Painting Us Forward© includes painted portraits of small business owners, accompanied by their own stories of the impact of COVID-19 mandated measures on their business. #paintingusforward Williams and her project were featured in a WKBT News story, which can be viewed here

In this editorial letter for the second issue of the Nordic Journal of Arts, Culture and Health, Editor-in-Chief's Anita Jensen and Wenche Torrissen reflect on the ways the arts have re-emerged a key asset for building wellbeing during our current times. They describe some of the creative efforts and arts initiatives that have arisen in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which validate the arts' time-tested ability to express the human condition and foster a sense of connection and meaning. The accompanying four articles, one essay, and two reviews published by the journal in this time of pandemic further reveal the innovation and empirical richness emerging from the field of arts in health.

PROJECT: MUSIC HEALS US is a non-profit organization whose mission is to provide inspiration, education and healing through live music performances and interactive programming to marginalized communities across the United States, with a focus on the disabled, rehabilitating, incarcerated, and homeless. In order to continue our mission amidst the current COVID-19 pandemic, for the past month PMHU has been offering its programming through one-on-one concerts via video livestream platforms to society's most isolated and vulnerable: COVID patients hospitalized across the country. Beginning with the New York Presbyterian Allen Pavilion ICU and Irving Plaza Emergency Department, and actively expanding to a network of major hospitals across the country, PMHU's musicians have been working tirelessly to bring beauty, dignity, and a sense of community to those who in many cases have become completely isolated from human contact.

Ann Morrow Johnson created the Museum of Quarantine on Quebec along a wall by the driveway of her Los Angeles home. She asked her neighbors to hang their quarantine creations, from arts and crafts to found objects. Each contribution to the museum is chronicled on Instagram. The wall has provided great joy to a socially distanced neighborhood - “You can’t go up and hug each other right now,” one neighbor said. “But you can hug each other with that wall.

ART-IN-PLACE is a collaboration between CNL Projects and Terrain Exhibitions that invites artists to exhibit an original work of art outside their home or from a window visible to the public between May 20- June 20, 2020. This collective action provides artists and community members in Chicagoland neighborhoods (and beyond) with a sense of hope and connectivity through the experience of public art during an unprecedented moment of isolation. The exhibited works will be featured in a curated collection of postcards made available for purchase in the coming weeks with proceeds benefiting the Arts for Illinois Relief Fund to support local Illinois artists and arts organizations. Original artwork will also be available for sale; please reach out to cortney@cortneylederer.com for more information.

HEARTs Passion Project and Miami Commissioner Ken Russell are helping your kids connect with senior citizens who may be lonely during this time of separation. Many of our elderly are in assisted living facilities and not able to see their families. Your child can create art that is directly addressed to one of over 400 seniors who would love to receive the message. Join us in creating virtual art or images of artworks for seniors at senior centers in your community and around the world. In this time of global concern, we would like to virtually reach out and share our love with those we cannot be with during this time. Select a senior's name from a list, address your artwork to that individual (first name only) and upload your art on the Hearts Passion Project website. Read the Miami Herald's reporting on the project here

Recognizing that art can be a catalyst for well-being, creativity and social engagement, NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale and Nova Southeastern University's (NSU) College of Psychology have teamed up to provide free, art-focused wellness resources that can be accessed virtually. Additional resources include videos by Artists featured in NSU Art Museum exhibitions, who describe what it means to make art during COVID-19, and at home creative projects.

The health crisis brought on by the novel coronavirus has plunged the global economy into a recession. While billions of people around the world turn to culture as a source of comfort and connection, the impact of COVID-19 has not spared the creative sector. Artists across the world, most of whom were already working part-time, on an informal basis or under precarious contracts prior to the pandemic, are struggling to make ends meet. Today, we are experiencing a cultural emergency. This is why UNESCO launched ResiliArt, a global movement joined by cultural professionals worldwide that sheds light on the current state of creative industries through virtual discussions. The devastation brought to the entire culture value chain will have a long-lasting impact on the creative economy; ResiliArt aims to ensure the continuity of conversations, data sharing, and advocacy efforts long after the pandemic subsides. Cultural industry professionals are encouraged to join the movement and replicate the ResiliArt debate sessions in their respective regions and thematic focus by following publicly available guidelines.

Practicing Distance by Jeff Kasper is a multi-part guide for preparing for our futures together post-quarantine. Each part offers a series of short practices beginning with an introduction to the four proxemic distances: intimate, personal, social, public. What follows are guided creative exercises to engage with solo, with a partner, or a small group, in imagined physical proximity during the time of the pandemic and beyond. This guide is adapted from the ongoing development of art and design-based tools used in peer-to-peer care circles, workshops, and social spaces for queer and disabled folks, survivors and allies, from 2016-present. The project uses Edward Hall's proxemics as a creative structure to explore personal boundaries through deep listening, self care, conflict, harm prevention, and accountability. Jeff Kasper is Assistant Professor and Undergraduate Program Director at UMass Amherst where he works in the Department of Art and is a Civic Engagement & Service Learning Fellow. He develops curriculums, workshops, and interactive projects from a healing-centered lens based in disability justice and trauma support culture.