Arts, Health and Seniors Project

The Arts, Health and Seniors Project is exploring how involvement in the arts can improve the health and wellbeing of seniors. This initiative is also supporting the development of new knowledge and expertise in the fields of seniors’ wellness, chronic disease management, and community-engaged arts.

This three-year pilot project is documenting the impacts of involvement on the physical health, mental health and social connections of participant seniors, with the hope of facilitating their ability to “age in place”, and is building new expertise amongst senior workers and artists in Vancouver and the three municipalities of the North Shore.

Context
The Arts, Health and Seniors Project will address many current issues for seniors and artists:

• Our population is aging and marginalization is increasing amongst the elderly


• Health practitioners across North America are recognizing the need for new models of care.


• Current approaches to recreation are being expanded and enriched to support seniors’ wellness.


• Community-engaged artists and those working with seniors seek support for their work in community partnership towards wellness through the arts.


• Research is needed to demonstrate the link between participation in the arts and health in the Canadian context.

Goals

• To maintain and/or improve the health and wellbeing of seniors in Vancouver and the North Shore through their participation in community-engaged arts practices;


• To create a supportive environment for community engaged arts practices and increase their use within health environments and centres for community programming;


• To demonstrate the positive impact of participation in arts-based activities on the health and well-being of seniors in Vancouver and the North Shore.

Activities
Over three years, the project will:

• Offer regular participatory arts workshops to four groups of seniors from a wide range of demographic clusters;


• Engage participants in “Arts Experiences”, opportunities for seniors to attend presentations of work by professional artists in their discipline and, where possible, of their peer group;


• Support a strong research component which will demonstrate real health outcomes for seniors and contribute to increasing the programming capacity of health and recreation services.

The groups are located in the City of Vancouver and the North Shore. Artists from a variety of disciplines (e.g. puppetry, visual arts, theatre, new media, literary arts) are developing works with the seniors and facilitating the creative process.