London Arts and Health, as part of Thrive LDN’s London Mental Health and Climate Coalition (LMHCC) are pleased to launch a series of commissions for Creativity and Wellbeing Week 2026. The London Mental Health and Climate Coalition will work over three years to support people and in particular Londoners in tackling climate change while also improving their mental health.

The project is funded by the National Lottery Community Fund via Thrive LDN.

We are pleased to announce six commissions for 2026, four (4) in London and two (2) across England.

But firstly, we want to thank you for all your amazing applications. From dancing, stitching, singing, growing, writing, cooking and everything else in between – for health, it has been incredibly difficult to select the final six (6) events to commission for this year’s Creativity and Wellbeing Week. The submissions have really opened our eyes to the breadth and depth of work happening up and down the country, we really were blown away with all your ideas!

Creativity and Wellbeing Week kicks off on the 18th May, so if you are able to celebrate by sharing your work, projects or blogs on our website we’d love you to do so if you are able. Become a member of London Arts and Health to receive bi-weekly newsletters, priority ticketing to our events and much more.

About the commissioned events

Events commissioned in London

The Purple Ladies are hoping to create a sanctuary where people with lived experience of displacement can re-connect, express themselves and collectively imagine more caring and sustainable futures.Through participatory movement, improvisation, storytelling and conversation TPL use creativity as a small act of rebellion against isolation and despair. @the.purpleladies

Be Manzini is an award-winning poet, trained in anatomy and physiology and Gestalt therapy, and the founder of the Newham Poetry Prize, whose practice centres the body as a site of knowledge, memory, and reclamation—particularly within marginalised communities disproportionately affected by lack of access to necessary health provision. The workshop will be an in-person poetry and embodied writing session in London for people impacted by racial injustice, gendered violence, and/or ableism, exploring “critical hope” as a lived, bodily, and evolving practice grounded in presence, articulation, and relationally in the face of uncertainty. @bemanzini @newhampoetryprize

MindFood will be hosting an outdoor event on Thursday 21st May at Horsenden Farm in Perivale. We will be inviting groups from local grassroots community support organisations to join us in creating a Tree of Life mural, helping participants explore a more hopeful future, and nurturing a sense of agency. The activity will encourage individuals to identify the small but achievable steps they can take to bring about positive change  @mindfood_cio

Homerton NHS is collaborating with Joy for Stuff and the Round Chapel Old School Rooms to run an interactive paper-recycling workshop, sharing our thoughts about the NHS going ‘paper-free’ as we turn appointment letters and information leaflets into new, beautiful and hopeful pieces of art. @joy_for_stuff @old_school_rooms @annabellemburns @nhshomerton

Across England

Based in Slough, without Shape without Form, the UK’s leading spiritual art space dedicated to mind well-being and championing art for social change, invites participants to explore inner climate change, the mental and emotional conditions within us. Through shared creative practice, the workshop looks at how caring for this inner world can support change in the world around us. @withoutshapewithoutform

Based in Bolton, Songs of Critical Hope is a participatory arts and health event from Think Cre8tive that brings people together through accessible group singing to strengthen wellbeing, connection, resilience and collective hope in the face of personal and social challenges. @ thinkcre8tivegroupcic 

We will be releasing full event details and how to attend or find out more about these amazing commissions on the Creativity and Wellbeing Week website, soon!

Photo credit: Mindfood