DUBAI: Does art — be it orchestral music or a landscape painting — possess healing powers? Many, including medical practitioners, believe it does. Over the past few years, physicians in Belgium and Canada have experimented with sending patients on museum visits, as part of ‘social prescribing,’ to improve their wellbeing and mental health.
Another great believer in the integration of art and healing is Christopher Bailey, who trained as a professional actor and is the co-founder of the Healing Arts Initiative at the World Health Organization.
“A deep aesthetic experience has an analgesic effect,” Bailey, who is based in Geneva, told Arab News. “It lowers pain, cortisol levels, and your stress goes down. It puts you into a more healing state. There are some very specific examples of a physical or medical effect. In the case of sickle cell anemia in Africa, for example, the malformed blood cells of this genetic disorder clump up like a blood dam in the joints, which causes very painful swelling. So, when you are listening to music that deeply affects you, the dopamine of that aesthetic experience actually dilates the blood vessels, relieving the pain and the swelling.
“The most profound effect, often, is simply helping you cope with misfortune and helping you achieve your highest state of physical, mental, and social wellbeing,” he continued. “When you listen to a concert or go to a gallery, the endorphins kick in, which actually help support, and reward, a feeling of connection to others. It helps support the building of community. It’s one of those things I think we knew, intuitively, for thousands of years. But the difference now is that there’s an emerging science that shows the mechanism behind it.”
Bailey first pitched the initiative — providing health facilities and community centers with uplifting forms of art — to the WHO’s top official, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, when the latter was elected as director-general of the organization in 2017.
“He put out this call to staff for crazy ideas, and my crazy idea was this arts and health program,” Bailey recalled. “I basically said, ‘We know that data, evidence and information are essential for better decision making, problem solving and saving lives. But we also know that evidence, data and information do not necessarily have much of an impact on people’s behavior. To change behavior, you have to have empathy — often in the form of a story.’ And he agreed.”
So far, several pilot projects have been launched in countries including Denmark, Italy and Romania. “I went to a children’s mental hospital in Nigeria and I was hearing from the staff that, prior to the installation of these child-friendly murals, oftentimes these children would be afraid of the starkness and the smells of the hospital, and they would immediately start crying,” said Bailey. “We didn’t predict many of them would later actually ask to have their birthday parties in the hospital.”
In October, the initiative made its way to Saudi Arabia with the launch of “Healing Arts Arabia” in Jeddah and Riyadh, in collaboration with the Jameel Arts & Health Lab, Aeon Collective and the G20 Global Innovation Hub. Roundtable discussions were held, supported by the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Culture. No tangible plans and activities have yet been set for the Kingdom, but these initial conversations were, Bailey said, crucial to gaining a better understanding of the Kingdom’s infrastructure and for building a long-term strategy.
“There was a wonderful discussion about whether to focus on music, on visual arts, on architecture… And there was one suggestion that I loved, which was, ‘Why not focus on poetry?’ I love that because I actually don’t know of another case that I’ve experienced around the world where poetry is front and center,” Bailey said.
The parties will meet again early in 2024 “to start immediately planning the initial implementations and studies so that it actually starts next year,” Bailey said.
“Saudi is accelerating,” Bailey noted. “They have the 2030 vision that they’re trying to achieve — a top-to-bottom rethinking of their society. It was interesting hearing from artists, architects, and health professionals about what is opening up and what is still kind of challenging, and nobody necessarily knows what it’s all going to turn into. That’s the case in all artistic endeavors, but there seems to be an excitement to get on with the journey.”
