Center for Arts in Medicine

Creating Healthy Communities: Arts + Public Health in America

COVID-19 Arts Response Overview

COVID-19 ARTS RESPONSE

Artists in the United States and around the world have mobilized in response to COVID-19 to enable rapid and widespread communication of health information and to help people to connect, cope, and be well in the short and long term. The arts are one of the most powerful means for communication and coping we have at our disposal today.

About These Resources

Created by arts and public health leaders from across the country, the resources provided on this site are designed to support arts-based responses to COVID-19. They call for and are intended to enable cross-sector collaboration between the public health, arts and culture, and community development sectors to drive high-impact responses to COVID-19 across diverse communities. 

Please use the menu on the right to access resources, and to add your program information and media to the COVID-19 Arts Resource Repository. 

More resources are being made available regularly, so please continue to visit this site. And, to engage in conversation with others working to mobilize the arts in COVID-19 response, please join the Creating Healthy Communities Network.

COVID-19 WEBINARS: 

Register for upcoming webinars and replay past webinars by clicking on each of these expandable options:

REPLAY | Remote Cultures Conversations: How artists support pandemic recovery | May 18th, 2021 at 2pm EST

The discussion will center on how artists and curators might collaborate with the public health sector in the transition from the remote cultures of the pandemic to a new normal. What do artists and public health administrators keep from the adaptations made during the pandemic? How do we work across sectors to reimagine a new reality? How can artists help the public re-acclimate?

In our conversation we have:
• Stephen Kwok, an artist working across multiple forms
• Edie Hubert, a researcher, music teacher and Performing Public Health Advisory team member
• Louise Shaw, Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Museum Curator

REPLAY | Remote Cultures Conversations: How the emergence of a vaccine provokes urgent collaborations in the arts and public health

The discussion will center on strategic partnerships between artists and public health professionals, particularly how they can collaborate across sectors in vaccine-related health communication efforts.

Due to a technical glitch, our closed captions did not transfer properly. Access the audio transcript.

REPLAY | Remote Cultures Conversation: How the arts build and maintain relationships during the pandemic

How have the arts helped people maintain relationships and nurture community during the pandemic? As the United States awaits distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine and the global death toll surpasses 2 million people, Remote Cultures takes a moment to talk with several key artists and researchers who have developed innovative ways of supporting their communities and modeling connection in these difficult times. We understand now more than ever that well-being is dependent on relationships-- this conversation takes an in-depth look at the arts' capacity to facilitate support, connection and healing.

REPLAY | Remote Cultures Conversation: How Uniquely Precarious Artists are Performing Public Health

The Remote Cultures project recognizes the ways in which the arts are adapting to public health measures and innovative responses therein. In this first virtual conversation two uniquely precarious artists and one budding public health professional to have an informal conversation about how their experiences during the pandemic have shaped their work.

REPLAY | Performing Public Health: Artists and Culture Making in the time of COVID-19

Performing Public Health (PPH) is an initiative within the UF Center for Arts in Medicine’s COVID-19 Arts Response that considers both the crucial cultural measures needed to slow the spread of COVID-19, and the various ways artists perform culture-making in response. 

In this webinar you will learn about:
1. The development of the Performing Public Health Advisory
2. Efforts to center marginalized artists and communities with the Unique Precarities project
3. Current initiatives to track adaptations in the arts within Remote Cultures

Credit for Graphics: Edith Williams for the PPH graphics, The artwork on display behind Meghan Moe Beitiks in Zoom is Strata (2014) by Charlie Ensz, The artwork on display behind Kaitlyn Wittig Mengüç in Zoom is a framed Geologic Map of Mount Mazama and Crater Lake, Oregon. By Charles R. Bacon, Scientific Investigations Map 2832. U.S. Department of the Interior. U.S. Geological Survey

REPLAY | Health, Arts, Parks, and Equity: A Toolkit for Practitioners

Join the Trust for Public Land for an introduction to the Toolkit for Health, Arts, Parks, and Equity (HAP-E), a new resource created for health, arts, and parks practitioners. The Toolkit was created in partnership between The Trust for Public Land (TPL) and the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO). It is built on the belief that health equity should be a goal for all sectors, and only then can everyone have a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible. The Toolkit offers a diverse array of practitioners the strategies to build toward health equity using arts and culture and parks and open space. It includes guiding principles, case studies, and policy recommendations. The webinar will build towards a meaningful conversation and workshop on how to apply The Toolkit in your local context. 

By the end of this webinar you will be able to:

  • Understand the sources of health inequity and evidence for arts and culture and placemaking to build health equity
  • Identify best practices for leveraging the value of arts and culture and place in a variety of health contexts
  • Reflect on the first steps to integrating place-based arts and culture that is responsive to the dual health crises of COVID and systemic racism in your community

Presenter Bios

Geneva Vest, BA

Geneva Vest is the Project Manager of Community Relations at The Trust for Public Land, where she advocates for greater park quality. Prior to that, she was a Research Fellow at Design for America, a human-centered design nonprofit at Northwestern University. She received her B.A. in Sociology from Rice University (’17).

Sadiya Muqueeth, DrPH

Dr. Sadiya Muqueeth is the Director of Community Health at the Trust for Public Land where she advances built environment & nature as tools for community health, nationally. She joined the organization from CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield in Maryland, where she was a Strategist in Community Health. She is a former CDC Public Health Prevention Service Fellow assigned to the Baltimore City Health Department and a returned Peace Corps volunteer from Paraguay. She earned her BA in Public Health Studies from Johns Hopkins University (2006), her MPH in Health Behavior from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill (2012), and her DrPH from Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health (2018). 

This project is sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs, and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture (section 286.25, Florida statutes.) 

REPLAY | Arts, Artists and Action: How Creative Practitioners Push Us Forward

Artists have the ability, and sometimes responsibility, to make real, everlasting change with their work. Beyond the artistic merit of their creation, many artists are working diligently to effect change in their communities and society as a whole. Join us for this webinar as two such artists, Darius V. Daughtry and Hannah L Drake, share what inspires them in their work and how their creativity is used to impact social change. 
 
Presenter Darius V. Daughtry fell in love with words at the age of six. It was then, that he used to write and draw his own comic books. While the pictures left a little to be desired, being able to paint pictures with words was a passion that soon began to blossom. Darius has been marrying the pen to the paper ever since. Today, Darius is an accomplished poet, playwright, director, educator, author, and community builder who believes in the transformative power of words. As the Founder and Artistic Director of Art Prevails Project, a performing arts organization dedicated to expanding cultural conversation through performance, arts education, and community engagement, Darius works diligently to use the arts as a vehicle for social change.

Presenter Hannah L Drake is a blogger, activist, public speaker, poet, and author of 11 books. She writes commentary on politics, feminism, and race. Hannah’s commentary on life and challenging others to dream bigger have been recognized by First Lady Michelle Obama. Hannah Drake was featured on the Tom Joyner Morning Show with Jacque Reid to discuss her international movement, Do Not Move Off the Sidewalk, which addresses the power of holding your space. In February 2019, Hannah was selected by the Muhammad Ali Center to be a Daughter of Greatness which features prominent women engaged in social philanthropy, activism, and pursuits of justice. Hannah’s message is thought-provoking and at times challenging, but Hannah believes that it is in the uncomfortable spaces that change can take place. “My sole purpose in writing and speaking is not that I entertain you. I am trying to shake a nation.”

REPLAY | The Power of Creativity in Public Health: Incorporating Art into Social Change Advocacy

How can you use art & creativity to make your public health campaigns more impactful?

How can we move people to make positive social change in the face of anger, fear, and injustice? 

The Center for Artistic Activism helps people use their creativity and culture to effect power. Winning campaigns incorporate innovation and artistic methods. This workshop led by the Center for Artistic Activism directors, Rebecca Bray and Steve Lambert, gives effective tools to incorporate art into social change advocacy through creativity, spectacle, surprise, and vision. Art can do much more than just “raising awareness” - we will talk about how it can move people to act and shift our conceptions of what is possible. Drawing on over ten years of experience working with creative change-makers and on public health issues around the world, the Center for Artistic Activism will relay surprising stories of people fighting for and winning equality and access using culture and creativity. You’ll leave with tools for how to use creativity to engage and inspire public health advocacy.

RECAP | Summer Learning Loss During COVID-19: How the Arts Can Help Reduce Summer Slide

This webinar was not recorded.

Studies show that most students lose skills in math without practice over the summer—up to 3 months of what they learned during the school year—and lower-income students typically lose skills in reading in addition to math. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as “summer slide.”

With most schools in the U.S. closing in March 2020 due to the pandemic, we will likely have to contend with a “spring slide” this year. Researchers predict that students will suffer serious setbacks from prolonged school closure - they will likely return in the fall with roughly 70% of learning gains in reading relative to a typical school year, and less than 50% of gains in math.

Fortunately, the arts can help boost academic learning during the summer in fun and surprising ways. From birth through adulthood, arts educational experiences can have remarkable impacts on students’ academic, social, and emotional outcomes.

Questions

  • What is “summer slide” and why does it most negatively impact children from lower-income households?
  • What does science tell us about how the arts can help impact learning?
  • What arts-related activities could parents try to incorporate at home to help their children learn and grow this summer?
  • What strategies can communities employ to use the arts to help address summer slide in the wake of COVID-19?
  • Looking ahead, what policies and resources could help reduce the summer slide for 2021 and beyond?

Speaker Bios
Host: Susan Magsamen is the Founder and Executive Director of the International Arts + Mind Lab (IAM Lab) in the Brain Science Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. IAM Lab brings together brain scientists and practitioners in architecture, music, and the arts to foster collaboration and research. Magsamen and her team combine interdisciplinary, evidence-based research with practical, applicable ideas and programs.

Panelist: Chan'nel Howard is the Fine Arts Coordinator for Baltimore City Public Schools.Ms. Howard received her Master's Degree from the University of Phoenix in School Administration, Supervision and Leadership and hopes to complete her doctorate by the fall of 2021. She is a proud graduate of Baltimore City Schools, attributes her success to music educators that she has had throughout her schooling and works to ensure Baltimore City Schools students equitable access to arts instruction across the district. 

Panelist: Dr. Karl Alexander is John Dewey Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University. His studies of summer learning loss helped bring attention to the problem of “summer slide” among low-income children. With the leadership of the National Summer Learning Association, he is co-editor of The Summer Slide: What We Know and Can Do About Summer Learning Loss (Teachers College Press, 2016).

Panelist: Stacie Sanders Evans is President & CEO of Young Audiences of Maryland. Each year, Young Audiences partners with hundreds of schools and community organizations in all 24 Maryland school districts to provide students—from pre-K to grade 12—with over 230,000 hours hands-on learning and engagement through the arts. Young Audiences' Summer Arts & Learning Academy is a full-day five-week program that introduces students to a wide variety of art forms and offers arts-integrated literacy and math classes co-taught by local teachers and professional teaching artists.

REPLAY | Creativity and Health: Why & How

What does it look like to infuse creativity into care settings in a sustainable way? On an individual basis and at the system level?  

Anne Basting shares examples from her work in her recent book, Creative Care. Here, she explores how the integration of creativity and care might be financially sustainable, including social prescribing movements. COVID is laying bare health inequities and social isolation. Recovery demands sustainable attention to fostering meaningful community connection, something participatory arts are uniquely poised to support. 

This 45-minute session will include a presentation and Q&A.

Presenter Bio: Ann Basting, founder and President of Time Slips and author of Creative Care: A Revolutionary Approach to Dementia and Elder Care, is a Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Basting's innovative work as an artist and scholar has been recognized by a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship, an Ashoka Fellowship, a Rockefeller Fellowship, and multiple major grants. She is author/editor of multiple books, including her latest, Creative Care (HarperOne); as well as The Penelope Project (U of Iowa), and Forget Memory (Johns Hopkins). TimeSlips fosters an alliance of artists and caregivers, bringing meaning and joy to late-life through creativity, and has over 900 certified facilitators in 48 states and 20 countries.


REPLAY | An Un-Webinar: Live Q&A about Best Practices for Arts Programming in Uncertain Times

Hosted by Kimberlee Campbell-Smith with Panelists: Amy Bucciarelli, MS, ATR-BC, Ferol Carytsas, MM, and Ricky Kendall (musician in residence).

REPLAY | The Practice of Partnership: Arts + Public Health

Presented by Michael Rohd, Center for Performance and Civic Practice

Recent events call for ongoing and new partnerships between public health workers, educators, and artists/culture makers. What work can we do to ensure those collaborations are equitable, productive and successful? In our time together, we will explore, share and engage around:

  • Collaboration- questions you can use when starting partnerships to ground them in a shared language, values and goals; and
  • Public engagement- a framework for considering, as partners, how you will listen to residents and stakeholders, and how you will, throughout your process, communicate and make decisions around accountability.

This session will include presentation, Q&A and problem-solving that will help you use the arts to skillfully support your community during this time.

Presenter Bio: Michael Rohd is a theatremaker, educator, facilitator and process designer. He is Artistic Director of 20 year-old Sojourn Theatre, Lead Artist for Civic Imagination at Center for Performance and Civic Practice, and an Institute Professor at Arizona State University's Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. His book "Theater for Community, Conflict and Dialogue" has been translated into 7 languages and is in it's16th printing.

REPLAY | Careers in Arts in Health in the Time of COVID-19

Center director, Jill Sonke, talks with us about careers in arts in health in the time of COVID-19. We also discuss our online grad program and answer audience questions. The video is hosted by Center director, Jill Sonke and MA in Arts in Medicine alum, Camilo Reina Munoz. Click here to request more information or visit our FAQ page to learn more!

Ready to take the next step and start your application? All interested applicants should schedule a phone call here or email us at camadmissions@arts.ufl.edu.


These resources are made possible through the generous support and partnership of ArtPlace America

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