Creativity and Wellbeing Week 2021
When we started planning Creativity and Wellbeing Week 2020, we were aiming high, building on the success of 2019 when we took the festival national and reached over 50 thousand people. Back then, we could never have imagined that we would have to move the festival online. Even more unthinkable was the idea that we would still be in a lockdown of sorts a year later.
The past year has proved to us all the sector’s resilience and the absolute need for arts and health. As our worlds became more restricted, people naturally turned to creative activity to stay connected and stay well. Practitioners used to deliver life-changing work in person adapted to Zoom’s world, and some organisations even moved into offering specific activity for people living with Covid or Long Covid.
We have spent the last year listening to our members and trying to find ways to support you. We know that so many of you have faced immense difficulties during the lockdown. A year into the pandemic, 100% of you told us that Covid has continued to impact your work, with nearly half of you reporting continued income loss and 62% unable to work in your usual setting.
We have responded by launching The Digital Sandpit, a Facebook Group where you can plan, practice, and polish your online practice. We are just starting to run online sessions, including hybrid working and returning to practice in person.
Earlier this year, we decided to run Creativity and Wellbeing Week 2021 as a ‘digital first’ festival. We miss people, but with the situation changing so frequently, we felt better prepared to focus online. We have also decided to do things a little differently this year, so our focus will be supporting practice, networking and sharing ideas. The sessions may be more intimate than we have seen in former years, but we feel that now is the time we need to stay connected.
Our festival is much more about you than it is about us and we are excited to see what you organise this year. We will do all we can to support you as an event organiser, whether you want to deliver online, remotely or in person. We expect and hope to see many events held safely outside this year. Combining creativity and nature, two of the most potent factors in wellbeing (in our humble opinion!)
So please have a read through our resources, plan your events, post them on the site, and the London Arts and Health team will fully support you. We are not printing a brochure this year, for obvious reasons, so we have a relaxed deadline for events. But to ensure we can spread the word, we are asking that you post your event by May 12th. The events can be any art form as long as they fall into arts and health activity.
We ask that events are free or at cost. We know that many event organisers previously have attracted new audiences during the week. If you are not in the position to organise an event, you can still add a listing to shout about who you are and what you are doing. We encourage you to link up with others in your area.
Our theme this year is ‘Care’. This is open to interpretation and fits with the Arts and Health season in partnership with the Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance and Arts & Health South West.
We all think we need more care in our lives as we take tentative steps to emerge from the most challenging year in living history for most of us. Care for ourselves, care for others and care for the world around us.
Most of all, we hope this week will be a chance to celebrate what we have all achieved over the past year and look ahead to how we can continue to strengthen our sector. We hope you will join us.
