Thinking differently about creative health
Research shows that participation in creative activity and art can reduce stress, improve self-esteem, and promote recovery.
But the therapeutic value of participatory arts extends far beyond benefits to individual health: in facilitating and amplifying authentic creative and cultural expression by and for marginalised communities, it also has the potential to reduce health inequalities on a much broader scale. Neurodivergent writer Liz Bell explains more.
We know that participatory arts can have a hugely positive impact on health and wellbeing, including for people from marginalised communities. However, when we focus the design and evaluation of our creative health interventions solely on individual outcomes, we risk inadvertently reinforcing a harmful individualisation of mental and physical distress that moves the burden of addressing health inequalities onto the very people most affected.
Systematic discrimination, stigmatisation and exclusion mean that people from marginalised communities, particularly those who lack social support, experience disproportionately high rates of physical and mental illness. While this affects people on an individual level, it isn’t really an individual problem – it’s a social one.
As such, reducing health inequalities means addressing not just the personal impact of marginalisation, but also the marginalisation itself.
The power of creativity
Marginalised communities have relatively little power within the social and cultural contexts in which they exist – their members are typically dismissed, ignored, talked over, infantilised and/or demonised. In a society built upon status, they lack social and cultural capital.
The idea of cultural and social capital is comparable to that of economic capital (property, land, money, etc). The groups with the most cultural and social capital are those whose voices are most frequently heard; whose networks and institutions are most established; whose ideas and values shape our social and cultural norms. To be rich in cultural and social capital is to be empowered. To lack cultural and social capital is to be alienated.
Just as we use tools and labour to produce (and reproduce) our material reality, we construct (and reconstruct) our social and cultural reality through stories and art. So on a social and cultural level, those whose stories we hear, and those whose art we see, have the power.
We already know that facilitating authentic expression through art can empower individuals, by helping them to understand themselves, learn new skills, and process difficult emotions. But if we want to reduce health inequalities, we also need to make sure that the stories and art created by people from marginalised communities are able to reach a wider audience.
Amplifying neurodivergent voices
…just as a forest with a high degree of diversity is more resilient and abundant than one with only a single type of tree, a society with lots of variation in how its inhabitants perceive and interact with the world is richer and more creative than one in which everyone thinks alike.
This principle was put into practice recently through an exhibition of forest-inspired artwork by neurodivergent people from across Gloucestershire, created as part of a new community engagement project co-produced by Westonbirt Arboretum and Artspace Cinderford.
The Thinking Differently About Diversity project was developed in partnership with members of Barnwood Trust’s Creating Change group, all of whom have direct or professional experience of disability and/or mental health challenges.
The aim was to show that, just as a forest with a high degree of diversity is more resilient and abundant than one with only a single type of tree, a society with lots of variation in how its inhabitants perceive and interact with the world is richer and more creative than one in which everyone thinks alike.
Over the course of six weeks, a series of artist-led community workshops were held for people with experience of dementia, brain injury, learning disability, autism and/or ADHD. During these workshops, participants were invited to reflect on the role and value of diversity and supported to express themselves creatively using a range of artistic techniques. Images of the resulting artwork were displayed as part of a multimedia exhibition in the Great Oak Hall at Westonbirt in May 2023, as well as in an online gallery and in a printed anthology.
Feedback from the people involved in the workshops was universally positive, but the wider benefits of projects like this go far beyond those experienced by individual participants. Facilitating and amplifying authentic expression by people from marginalised communities (in this case, neurodivergent people) can empower them to generate their own cultural and social capital, while also encouraging people who are in positions of social and cultural privilege to recognise, understand, and accommodate minority identities and experiences.
Strengthening local communities
Facilitating the generation and distribution of creative and cultural capital can also be an effective approach to reducing health inequalities in place-based communities, as shown recently by Create Gloucestershire through its groundbreaking work with Culture Matson.
Culture Matson is a partnership that brings together a range of people and organisations from across the Matson, Robinswood and White City ward, to develop, support, and fund community-led creative and cultural projects that unlock potential and improve wellbeing.
Together they co-designed a Community Chest (known in the group as the ‘piggy bank’) through which anyone in the community can apply for funding to deliver creative health activities that meet locally identified needs. With all funding decisions made collectively by local residents, this approach not only serves to build the skills and confidence of individuals, but it also enables the community to generate valuable social and cultural capital of its own.
Encouraging curiosity, creativity, and connection
The model upon which these initiatives are based ensures that people from marginalised communities can not only authentically express themselves, but they can also be heard. It is the powerful liberatory potential of this approach that I hope to harness for the benefit of the neurodivergent community through The ZIG/ZAG Project, the establishment of which was inspired by my own experience as a participant in Barnwood’s Creating Change programme.
“Art is necessary in order that we may recognise and change the world.” Ernst Fischer
At the heart of ZIG/ZAG are three principles: curiosity, creativity, and connection. Curiosity, because it is only by exploring new ideas and possibilities that we can discover different perspectives and learn new ways of working; creativity, because supporting people to express themselves authentically requires us to afford them a degree of artistic agency; and connection, because art is as much about seeing as it is about being seen – or as writer Ernst Fischer said: Art is necessary in order that we may recognise and change the world.
These three principles can be applied to any creative health project that seeks to reduce health inequalities by empowering marginalised communities, whether that community already has well-established boundaries, or its social and cultural identity is still evolving. By embedding curiosity, creativity, and connection at the very heart of the design, delivery, and evaluation of our creative health interventions, we can all create a kinder, more equal world.
Liz Bell is a neurodivergent writer and founder of The ZIG/ZAG Project, which encourages curiosity, creativity, and connection around the idea of neurodiversity. By developing collaborative, mutually supportive partnerships with people and organisations from across the non-profit and public sectors in Gloucestershire and beyond, ZIG/ZAG aims to help communities of all kinds to imagine, co-create, and advocate for a more inclusive society.