Healing Arts Scotland Q&As
Hear more from the team behind the scenes
In the lead up to Healing Arts Scotland 2024, we’re asking some questions to the team behind the scenes. Find out more about the events, workshops, and conferences taking place on the Healing Arts Scotland website.
First, we spoke with Nisha Sajnani, PhD, Co-Founding Co-Director of the Jameel Arts & Health Lab.
Can you help us understand your background and role in the world of arts, health and wellbeing?
I have been involved in the arts and health for the past 30 years. First as an actress and applied theatre artist, supporting youth from racialized and displaced communities in Edmonton, Alberta (Canada) and later in Montreal, Quebec, where I worked with community organizations focused on racial justice, gender and health equity, and access to clean water. I trained as a drama therapist and later in community economic development at the School of Community and Public Affairs at Concordia University. This deepened my understanding of how creative play, improvisation, and performance could serve as both a joyful, therapeutic artform and a generative policy platform from which to experience and inspire an authentic sense of participation and belonging.
I moved to the United States where I directed the Community Health program at the Posttraumatic Stress Center in New Haven, Connecticut. I worked across a spectrum of clinical to collective health; in addition to providing trauma-centered psychotherapy, I co-developed an innovative arts-based public health program with local schools. Now, I chair the Creative Arts Therapies Consortium at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development where I am an Associate Professor and direct the Graduate Program in Drama Therapy and our Theatre and Health Lab. I am also on faculty with the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma where I continue to lecture on the role of beauty in the context of conflict and remaking home.
I co-founded and co-direct the Jameel Arts & Health Lab which was established in collaboration with the WHO Regional Office for Europe, NYU Steinhardt, Culturunners, and Community Jameel. In this role, I oversee our research strategy and support our global network of affiliated researchers and research labs who share in our mission to measurably improve lives through the arts.
What kinds of arts activities help you and why?
As a kid, I studied tap, jazz, and ballet at the Edmonton School of Ballet and bharatanatyam, a classical Indian dance form. My mother enrolled me in Japanese ink painting at the Edmonton Art Gallery, viola lessons at a local community center, choir at church, and I joined the craft corner and theatre ensemble at every summer camp. I volunteered in the arts program at our local hospital. All of these were vital, life-giving activities that influenced my aesthetic sensibilities and taught me important life skills. These days, I experience what Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi described as a flow state when I’m absorbed in theatremaking or writing. I still turn to music, painting, and craft to shift my mood, de-stress, and regain perspective. And of course, I love dancing if the music is right!
What are you most looking forward to participating in?
There is so much that I am looking forward to on what will be my first trip to Scotland. In particular, I’m looking forward to the opening celebration outside Scottish Parliament on Monday, Aug. 19th which will be presented as part of the Edinburgh International Festival. I’m also looking forward to the wellbeing concert in Glasgow, the Smalltown Boy exhibit, and workshops and talks in Aberdeen and Orkney. I’m sure that what emerges from the participatory arts relay, organized by the International Teaching Artist Collaborative (ITAC), will be very special and I hope to catch the silent disco, too! Most of all, I look forward to participating in good conversations and taking in the inspiring Scottish landscape.
What legacy would you like Healing Arts to leave in Scotland?
We are so proud to co-host our first country-wide Healing Arts activation in Scotland in partnership with Scottish Ballet, Public Health Scotland, and an extraordinary network of community partners. In many ways, the road leading to Healing Arts Scotland is the legacy. The process of creating this week-long cornucopia of dialogues, workshops, exhibits, and experiences has provided reason to collaborate and strengthen relationships across borders of many kinds. My hope is that these bonds further energize already existing networks towards truly realizing the potential that the arts have in our collective health and wellbeing.
The conference days take place 19-20 August in Edinburgh, and 21 August in Glasgow.
We spoke with Christopher Bailey, Art & Health Lead, WHO & Founding Co-Director, Jameel Arts & Health Lab.
What was the motivation for creating the Healing Arts activations?
They emerged organically. It began during the pandemic. We had a generous offer from Christie’s Auction House to hold these charity auctions. We used to help support some special projects in arts in health and to support artists who were negatively impacted by the pandemic. They started online and then around the world where Christie’s were having auctions. So, we called them Healing Arts – Saudi Arabia or Healing Arts London or where these auctions were. Pretty soon cities around the world were thinking ‘we’ll have a Healing Arts event’, even though there wasn’t a Christie’s Auction House there. And it took on a life of its own. We realised there was a hunger out there for this kind of thing. Before we knew it, we had a movement on our hands.
Have you been involved with Healing Arts from the start?
It began as a collaboration between my own work and CULTURUNNERS which Steven Stapleton runs. He was the one with the connection with Christie’s Auction House. Pretty soon we had an ever-expanding network of people interested and it grew.
Around the Saudi auction, we had an online event called the pilgrimage and the pandemic. We had the creator of the first modern art gallery in Jeddah on the panel as well, at the time, the Assistant Director General at WHO. We talked about how creativity can be used during the pandemic to create a sacred space around yourself. Make the space around you a place of contemplation and of solace. This conversation got a lot of attention. Community Jameel who had already been funding arts and health thought this was an interesting conversation and worth further investigation. This is what eventually became the Jameel Arts & Health Lab.
How do you see the evolution of Healing Arts Scotland?
The origin of the Scottish activation was similarly organic, as many of the others. It began with conversations and led to this. What makes this activation novel is that it’s the first national activation. Normally, an institution is interested in creating a citywide activation. But, this time we’ve ever attempted a national one. That’s what I think makes it exciting. And if it’s as successful as I believe it’s going to be, it wouldn’t surprise me if others followed.
What is your hope for people who come to participate in the Healing Arts Scotland week?
I think there will be different takeaways depending on the local context. Some common denominators [from previous activations] have been people who work in arts and health are innovators by definition. And in their local community or institution, they often feel like the odd person out. They think ‘I’m the only one doing this’. When you have these activations, it becomes increasingly clear that there is a community out there of people who have been taking similar journeys. So that in and of itself, to know that you’re not alone, there is a community you can connect to, you can share your experience, you can commiserate, you can plan, you share best practices, that all has value.
The other thing that typically happens particularly if you get policymakers involved, as we have with this activation, is that it actually results in real policy change. It gives the policymakers confidence that this is something that has public support. Also with collaboration with WHO and the research partners who have evidence to share that supports real policy change with numbers and best practices.
Ultimately the goal of these activations is to start a positive dialogue that results in more people having access to these programmes and more people having access to the opportunity for better health.
Are there any highlights that you are looking forward to being involved during the week?
Other people’s stories, stories that I haven’t heard. I’m in awe of the wonderful things that are happening in the communities of Glasgow, in the remote villages of Orkney, it never ceases to amaze me the resiliency, the creativity, and the love that happens in these communities.
Hear from Christopher at the conference days on 19-20 August in Edinburgh, and 21 August in Glasgow.
