A new view of the arts in health field in the Netherlands
An inventory of 220 recent or ongoing arts in health initiatives has been created, providing a first snapshot of the field. The inventory documents where projects happened, who they reached, and how they worked, across a range of settings. The inventory provides a framework for building a nationwide database of arts in health projects, and to forge important alliances across sectors.
Many more projects exist than were included in this report. The relatively strong representation of North Brabant largely reflects the fact that the inventory was conducted by Kunstloc Brabant, where an extensive regional network was already in place.
The field is bigger than you may think
Arts in health initiatives are everywhere. In community settings, long-term care, and hospitals, but also in places you might not expect: schools, libraries, museums, primary care, hospices, mental health facilities, and refugee centres. The projects engage people of all ages, including adults, older people, young people, and children, and they work with informal caregivers and healthcare professionals.
There isn’t just one art form
Arts in health is a very diverse field. Although visual arts and music projects appear most often in the inventory, it also includes theatre, photography, dance, social design, graphic design, literature, textiles, film, new media, and technology. A clown on a children's ward, a poet working with nursing home staff, or people making a quilt together: these are all examples of arts in health.
It’s almost always collaborative
One of the most striking findings is that successful initiatives often involve collaborations between different sorts of partners. Artists working alongside healthcare organisations, community organisations, and cultural institutions, in a diverse but balanced mix. Only a handful of initiatives reported having no collaborative partners.
This suggests how arts in health really works in collaboration across sectors, in networks where the arts, healthcare, and community wellbeing come together. These are people from different backgrounds, finding new ways to support wellbeing, together.
Beneath the numbers lies something fragile
The inventory also tells another story. Beneath all these initiatives is the reality that many arts in health programs that want to be permanent are dependent upon temporary funding sources.
Most of the initiatives surveyed relied on funding lasting for about a year. This means that grants expire and must be reapplied for, again and again. Only 37 initiatives reported being funded securely for more than three years. The other initiatives move from one funding to the next. It is a cycle of short-term funding: plenty of activity, but little solid ground from which to offer permanent programming.
There is one particularly interesting pattern: initiatives with a cultural coordinator on staff are more likely to have long-term funding. In other words, having someone whose role is to connect the arts and healthcare appears to go hand in hand with practices that last.
Find out more
The inventory does not evaluate program quality or impacts, since the scientific literature and professional reports have already established that arts in health is a viable field in the Netherlands. Rather, the survey documents how people from diverse sectors are working together to expand and sustain the practice of arts in health in the Netherlands.
Curious to explore the findings? Download the first national inventory by Arts in Health Netherlands to discover where arts in health is happening across the Netherlands, how the field is organised, and what opportunities lie ahead.