Creative Approaches to Wellbeing

During the COVID-19 pandemic, arts and creative practitioners and cultural and community organisations produced work that addressed issues such as the challenges of isolation or created spaces that can enable recovery or renewal. In this collection, authors reflect on how individuals and communities coped, adapting and using creativity in ways that were sometimes everyday and sometimes extraordinary. A spotlight is placed on the rich diversity of research funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in response to COVID in this area. Significantly, the volume's chapters look forward from the pandemic experience, presenting case studies and detailed examples that suggest how arts, culture and other community assets might be mobilised, including through co-creation and co-production, to enable greater and more equal access to resources in future. There are valuable lessons that might help us cope and develop resilience now and in similar crises. Threaded through all the contributions, readers will discover a focus on the experiences and voices of those marginalised during the pandemic, because of their lived experiences of structural inequalities, or due to mental or physical ill-health or age. These are difficult and complex topics, and there are vital lessons here for policy and for practice in the arts and for provision of health and care.