Representation and Creative Health with ARCH

About ARCH

Advocates for Representation in Creative Health (ARCH) was formed in 2024 to bring together creative health leaders who have experienced racism and who identify as Black, Brown, Asian, or have mixed heritage backgrounds.

ARCH aims to increase representation in the creative health sector.

The ARCH Advisory Group will shape and inform programmes of work, advocate on behalf of ARCH and its aims, and design and deliver events and projects aimed at increasing representation in creative health.

About the event

ARCH endeavours to become a nationwide advocacy group and influence the sector with its members based across England. In the launch event, London Arts and Health will introduce the group and share the strategic plan and vision.

This event is for creative health practitioners, artists, regional and community-based organisations, VCSEs, and health partners to engage on the issues of racism and underrepresentation in the creative health sector.

About Creativity and Wellbeing Week

Creativity and Wellbeing Week (19-25th May 2025) is a partnership between London Arts and Health and the Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance.

Now in its 14th year, the week is an opportunity for thousands of creatives and arts and cultural organisations to showcase the amazing, wide-ranging work they are doing to support health and wellbeing around the UK and beyond – whether in hospitals, museums, theatres, residential care, galleries, community centres, heritage sites, libraries, or people’s homes.

This year, our theme is ‘New Horizons in Creative Health’. We aim to engage with a wide range of grass-roots community organisations, practitioners, and participants across the country to understand their approach to and experience of Creative Health practices while asking key questions about the challenges of sustaining this work.

As the crises in individual, communal, and planetary health deepen, we are compelled to act in imaginative, radical ways to ensure our survival. Creative Health helps us to thrive as individuals and communities, but it is also an act of resistance.

ARCH Members

ARCH is chaired by Dr Tola Dabiri, who will facilitate the event and engage in a discussion with a few key members of the group.

Dr Tola Dabiri

Dr Tola Dabiri has worked across the cultural sector since 1995, beginning her career in public libraries and archives. She has also worked at the Museums Libraries and Archives Council and The National Archives, and the UK Centre for Carnival Arts, and the National Archives and the National Lead for Arts and Culture at the National Academy for Social Prescribing.

Tola has developed and managed a number of successful projects including Carnival in a Box (www.carnivalinabox.co.uk ), Fundraising for Archives for The National Archives, and UKCCA’s HLF-funded Carnival Archive Project, (www.carnivalarchives.org.uk).

Tola was awarded a PhD from Leeds Beckett University, for her research looking at orality and the intangible cultural heritage of British Caribbean Carnival. Tola is also a consultant in the cultural sector, specialising in project management, equality and inclusion, and fundraising.

Please email us if you have specific access requirements for the sandpit sessions. Zoom captioning will be on. info@londonartsandhealth.org.uk

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