Artists in Healthcare: Collaborations and Complexities

Catalog description

The economically over-burdened US health care system and extended life expectancies for older adults offer a unique opportunity for working artists—not arts therapists—to intervene in the rapidly expanding field of integrative art and health. Rather than study health outcomes as indicators of 'success,' we centralize creative practice as our axis of inquiry. Course readings, interviews, and field visits to a Durham-based intervention highlight power imbalances and cultural sensitivities in hospitals, clinical care, assisted living, and nonprofit community care contexts. Culminates in student driven case studies of local arts work and workarounds.