Arts in Health Summer School 2025
This year's week-long Summer School 2025 introduced students to the emerging field of arts in health. Students experienced the theories, practices, and ethics of using the arts to provide care, support wellbeing, and encourage healthy living.
“The Summer School brings together a diverse group of people, to build a common understanding of how Arts in Health works,” says Ferdinand Lewis, director of education for Arts in Health Netherlands (AiHN). “They leave the School as a community of learners, ready to explore how they might want to contribute to the field.”
The 2025 Summer School included students from the Netherlands, Italy, Ireland, England, Spain, Belgium, and Latvia. The School's curriculum was designed for people at different points in their careers, and is open to mid-career graduates of MBO, HBO, and universities, as well as current students at any of those institutions. “Establishing a permanent place for the arts in our healthcare system will require professionals who can work across sectors, disciplines and traditional roles,” Lewis says.
AiHN’s program director Kirsten Krans said, “Every year we receive excellent applications, and fill all the spaces right away. This year we had twice as many applications as spaces available. So many people want to learn how the arts can support care in hospitals, long-term care, and in communities!”
The Summer School has quickly evolved over the past three years. Successfully piloted in June of 2023, in 2024 the School was awarded support from the University of Groningen to become an official summer school offering.
AiHN's Summer School partners include the Aletta Jacobs School of Public Health; University College Groningen; Prins Claus Conservatorium; the Faculty of Religion, Culture & Society at the University of Groningen; the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. In 2024 we also partnered with the University of Hamburg.
Students have included professionals and students from the visual, performing, and literary arts; medical doctors and nurses; social workers; university assistant professors; undergraduate, master's, and PhD students. Lewis says, “The Arts in Health field in the Netherlands needs to engage broadly with everything that is happening in the EU and overseas. The Summer School also connects students with international programs and experts."
The curriculum uses an 'experiential learning' approach to pedagogy, which integrates the learning of theory and practice in a unique workshop setting. “Students are immersed in the practice of arts in health right away,” Lewis explains, “while they are also learning the science and theory explaining the field. They follow up on those experiences with structured reflection to integrate experience and knowledge”.
Each student is encouraged to formulate their own goals, and each of them takes away their own set of tools, ideas, and inspirations. One student reported, “For me it was about getting to know what is out there in the field”, while another reported learning about the practice of Arts in Health as well as how to organise her own projects and programmes.
Finally, all of the teaching and learning in the Arts in Health Summer School occurs in a community of people exploring their common passion for this exciting new field. Students who complete the School can receive an official ‘digital credential’ from the University of Groningen to use on CV’s. They also have the opportunity to join Arts in Health Netherlands’ national Arts in Health Learning Community, which meets four times per year to share knowledge, discuss current issues, and build networks in the Netherlands and abroad.
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