Starting from distinct artistic contexts and languages, two projects come together around a shared concern: creating spaces for connection, participation and care through the arts. In COMvivência(s), an initiative by Associação Paisagem Periférica, theatre-making processes bring together medical students, residents of social housing managed by CASFIG (the Social and Financial Coordination Office for the Municipality of Guimarães’ Housing) and users of the Cruz Vermelha Emergency Social Support Centre, exploring new forms of connection through the notion of care – for oneself, for others and for the spaces we inhabit. In CORDÃO, a project by Faz Cultura, a community choir brings together people living with cancer, either undergoing treatment or in remission, along with their carers and friends, seeking to combat social isolation and, through music and collective singing, develop new ways of experiencing and understanding illness.

It is from these experiences that the Art and Health: Practices, Dialogues and Reflections gathering emerges: an opportunity to share processes, question practices and broaden the debate around the relationships between art, health and care.

Over two days, the gathering brings together healthcare professionals, artists, researchers and other practitioners to explore and question different ways in which art, health and care can intersect. Through panels, workshops and moments of sharing and reflection, projects and methodologies that bring these fields together and challenge their boundaries will be presented. From narrative medicine to bibliotherapy, from medical education to participatory arts, concrete experiences of collaboration will be presented and discussed, along with the opportunities and responsibilities that emerge from these intersections. A space for exchange between different forms of knowledge and practice, where art and health come together to open up new questions, relationships and possibilities.

Aimed at healthcare professionals, artists, musicians, social-sector professionals, students and anyone else interested, participation in both days of the gathering is free upon registration by emailing participa@fazcultura.pt.

Nuno Gouveia – Executive Director of Faz Cultura – Braga Municipal Culture Company

Inês Henriques - PARTIS & Art for Change Project Manager
Manuela Ferreira – President of Associação Paisagem Periférica

Pedro Morgado – Lecturer representing the University of Minho School of Medicine

Vítor Moura – Director of the Centre for Humanistic Studies at the University of Minho (CEHUM)

Théâtre de la Ville – Projets Passerelles – Arts & Santé / Académie Culture-Santé (recorded contribution)

Mariana Abranches Pinto – President and Executive Director of Compassio, national lead of the group on Day 3, speaker and trainer

Catarina Portela – Director of the Oncology Department at Hospital de Braga and Technical Director of the CORDÃO project

Rui Macedo – General Practitioner, Lecturer and Musician

Manuel Valente Alves – Doctor, visual artist, essayist and curator

Moderator: José Eduardo Silva – Lecturer at the University of Minho (ELACH / Theatre) and researcher at CEHUM/GIArtes

Nadine Santos – Lecturer at the University of Minho School of Medicine

Rui Amaral Mendes – Lecturer at the University of Porto School of Medicine

Carla Ávila (online participation) – Artist and lecturer at the Federal University of Grande Dourados (Brazil) and researcher at LABORARTE-MEET-UNICAMP / MANDI’O UFGD Group

Moderator: Tiago Porteiro – Lecturer at the University of Minho (ELACH / Theatre) and researcher at CEHUM/GIArtes

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Target audience: healthcare professionals, social-sector professionals, artists, musicians and others interested in integrating artistic processes into their practice.

Narrative medicine is a medical practice in which narrative skills enable a better understanding and interpretation of the individual, the experience of illness and the process of suffering. Incorporating narrative medicine and connecting literature with medical sciences can be useful not only to healthcare professionals, as a therapeutic and consultation tool, but also to patients, who can reclaim their own narrative and individuality throughout the process of suffering and treatment.

A Bibliotherapy Circle is a group gathering in which, through the reading aloud of one or more texts by the facilitator, participants are encouraged to engage in dialogue on several levels: with themselves, through identification with the story and the resulting introspection based on memories, associations and extrapolations created in the imagination; with the author of the text, the events narrated and its characters; and with the facilitator and the other members of the group, expressing themselves in a space intended to foster acceptance, respect and empathy, without judgement or value judgements. By the end, participants are expected to have experienced moments of insight and calm that contribute to their overall balance and wellbeing. At a time of acceleration and an evident difficulty in actively listening to one another, a Bibliotherapy Circle is a clearing that invites us to pause, connect and humanise.

Helena Pires – Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences at the University of Minho and member of the Centre for Communication and Society Studies (CECS).

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Target audience: artists, musicians, students and others interested in participatory arts and the intersection between art and health.

Workshops focused on the methodologies applied in the COMvivência(s) and CORDÃO projects.

Led by Ricardo Baptista and Joana Araújo, Artistic Directors of the project

In this workshop, we will explore in practical terms the methodology developed through CORDÃO, a community choir that brings together people living with cancer, either undergoing treatment or in remission, along with carers and friends. Through voice and listening, we will experiment with tools that promote expression, connection and the creation of a space of comfort and trust. An opportunity to discover and experience a practice that uses the choir as a space for connection, belonging and combating isolation. Comfortable clothing and footwear are recommended.

Led by Manuela Ferreira – Artistic Director of the project

A workshop to discover and experience the methodology of the COMvivência(s) project through theatre, listening and collective creation.

Through theatre games, body and voice exercises, sharing experiences and creative practices, we will explore different ways of caring for ourselves and others. The workshop introduces the way the project brings residents and medical students together, using theatre as a space for connection, reflection and transformation. Comfortable clothing and footwear are recommended.

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José Soeiro – Sociologist, lecturer at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto and researcher at the University of Porto Institute of Sociology

Throughout the life cycle, care is what sustains our everyday lives. It supports homes, bodies and communities, despite often remaining invisible and undervalued. Starting from the recognition of our mutual interdependence, we will argue for the need for a profound transformation in the way society recognises, distributes and organises care. In other words, we will explore the possibility of incorporating care into our practices, including artistic practices; developing dispositions of care while rejecting its naturalisation and gendered division; socialising and universalising care, without confining it to family relationships or biological or ethnic ties; and treating care as a right, rather than as a market niche or sphere of exploitation. What would a society capable of distributing both the burden and the joy of caring more fairly look like? Can we think of our practices as spaces for expanding care, from the territories we inhabit to global relationships? Could care be the organising principle of society?

Moderator: Rita Ribeiro – Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Minho.

Joana Henriques – Public Programmes Coordinator at MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology

Margarida Rodrigues – Neurologist, Coordinator of CNS Braga and lead of the Orquestra ParkinSound initiative

Rui Spranger – Actor, Director, Founder and Artistic Director of Apuro – Associação Cultural e Filantrópica, responsible for the Do lado de fora project

Moderator: Joana Cruz – Researcher at CIIE / Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto

Moderator: Hugo Seabra – Manager of the PARTIS & Art for Change initiative at Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian and Fundación “la Caixa”

Marisa Machado – Director of Escola Superior de Saúde do Vale do Ave – ESSVA / IPSN | CESPU

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Faz Cultura – Braga Municipal Culture Company and Associação Paisagem Periférica respectively run the CORDÃO – Coro de Doentes e Amigos Oncológicos and COMvivência(s) projects, both supported by the PARTIS & Art for Change programme of Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian and Fundación “la Caixa”.