From 23 to 30 June in Lviv, a week of Healing Arts Ukraine events will take place, bringing together national and international institutions, medical professionals, educators, artists and mental health specialists who work with arts-based approaches in healthcare and psychosocial support systems.
Healing Arts is a global initiative at the intersection of art and health, launched by the Jameel Arts & Health Lab in collaboration with the World Health Organization. The Lviv project will form part of the international Healing Arts Week series, which has already taken place in New York, Paris, Venice, Jaipur and other cities around the world.
Director of the Institute of Cultural Strategy Yulia Khomchyn stressed that culture is currently one of the pillars of societal resilience, particularly in the context of full-scale war, and that Lviv is consistently developing this area within the framework of the “Responsibility to Be” concept and projects such as Healing Arts Ukraine, Unbroken Art and the municipal programme “Responsibility to Be”.
The Trauma-Informed Arts School during the week will focus on training social, medical and cultural workers in trauma-sensitive practices. Its aim is to prepare specialists who will be able to apply arts-based approaches in working with patients with PTSD, including veterans, service personnel and children. Over four days, participants will be introduced to various artistic practices and initiatives that help create a safe space for recovery. As director of the NGO Art Dot (Art Therapy Force) Veronika Skliarova noted, this is not about art therapy as such, but about the role of art in supporting people who have gone through difficult experiences, as well as about an international showcase that will bring together participants and experts from different countries.
From 27 to 30 June, Lviv will host the Arts for Health Congress. It will be attended by representatives of national and international institutions, and professionals from the medical, educational and cultural sectors from Ukraine, the United Kingdom and other European countries. The programme includes talks, facilitated discussions and group work. Participants will present evidence-based approaches to integrating the arts into healthcare systems and recommendations for implementing an “Arts on Prescription” programme in Ukraine.
Guests of the congress will include Christopher Bailey (former head of the World Health Organization’s Arts and Health programme), Nigel Osborne (music therapist, composer, professor at the University of Edinburgh), Iryna Holubetska (head of the Centre for Assistance to Ukrainians who have survived captivity, torture and moral trauma as a result of the war), Amir Shahid (consultant to the WHO Regional Office for Europe on arts and health), as well as representatives of relevant ministries, Lviv City Council, the Unbroken rehabilitation centre and other institutions.
Throughout the week in Lviv, a series of free cultural events is planned: exhibitions, workshops, performances, musical and visual collaborations that will present different approaches to working with experiences of war and engage residents in collective creativity. Lviv residents will be able to learn how to create comics, weave pictures from camouflage nets, attend a concert by veterans, master macramé, and visit art exhibitions, audio walks and discussions with artists. All events are free of charge and open to the public.
Artist and showcase curator Yaryna Shumska noted that neurodivergent artists have also joined the programme, and that the events themselves are designed both for working with veterans and for a wider audience whose traumatic experiences may not be immediately apparent. A separate strand is dedicated to the theme of memory and rethinking current events through art, in particular through performances created by veterans and with their participation, in collaboration with the First Theatre and the Unbroken rehabilitation centre.
The Healing Arts Ukraine project is implemented by Art Therapy Force as part of the global Healing Arts initiative by the Jameel Arts & Health Lab with the support of the WHO Regional Office for Europe under the Health Resilience in the Eastern Partnership programme, funded by the EU. The initiative is being carried out by a national coalition of organisations at the intersection of culture, healthcare, education and policy, including Lviv City Council, LKP “Lviv Radio”, the Institute of Cultural Strategy, the Unbroken rehabilitation centre and King’s College London.