2:30 - 2:40 pm

Illness, Self-Expression, and Capturing emotions with Colour with Shanali

2:40 - 2:50 pm

Panel Discussion and Audience Q&A with Sarah, Shanali, Victoria & Hayley

2:50 - 2:55 pm

Close and Reflect on session

Victoria Hume is Director of the Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance. She has a background as a composer, researcher and project manager specialising in culture, health and wellbeing, and was an arts manager for the NHS for 15 years. From 2010-2013 she was chair of London Arts in Health Forum and was the founding chair for the National Alliance for Arts, Health & Wellbeing in 2012. She is also a Research Associate in the medical humanities at WiSER (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg), helping to support the Medical & Health Humanities Africa Network, and establishing a new module in hospital-based performance for the university's division of music. In 2017 she received a distinction for a Masters in Music and Health Communication focused on hospital-induced delirium. She continues to write and release music through Lost Map Records, based on the Isle of Eigg. https://www.culturehealthandwellbeing.org.uk/

Shanali is a digital artist, educator retired clinician, and patient. She is the founder of changing lanes and works across the intersections of art, health, medical education, and patient support. She took up Digital art following early retirement due to a rare illness, that came on during her specialist training in Rheumatology. Shanali explores ‘art and the human factor’ using colour as a method to document her observations and portray different energies surrounding ‘the essence of being a patient’. Her digital canvases are her interpretation as an artist, patient, and clinician on ‘How pain looks like’, ‘Living with and making sense of illness looks like’. Her work is centered on generating awareness about creative engagement and finding tools such as art to combat struggles rising from a long-term illness. And, how expressions of the ‘lived experience’ can help health practitioners and the public get a deeper understanding of what people go through, the impact illnesses have on a person’s image and identity.

Sarah has spent her career working across the interdisciplinary arts, academia, healthcare and technology as a producer, curator, artist and researcher. She graduated from the University of Kent with a First Class Honours in Anthropology with a Year in Japan BSc. Following her degree, she worked with the NHS before moving into contemporary art, worked with organisations including Fabrica Gallery and Lighthouse, Brighton. In 2016 she moved to Australia where she worked with The School of Life and TEDxSydney. It was here she began working in VR and joined The Big Anxiety Festival as a Researcher, VR Curator and “Awkward Conversationalist. ” In 2017 she moved to the US and became a research assistant at Stanford University, California, investigating the cross-cultural sensory experience of communicating with God. She moved back to the UK and founded Hatsumi in May 2018. Alongside her role with Hatsumi, she is the producer on Deep, a meditative VR experience controlled by breathing, and is the healthcare lead for Immerse UK.

Hayley is a creative collaborator and musician based in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, and a passionate and experienced practitioner who has worked across sectors and communities to make things happen; be it a pop-up event on the streets of Barnsley, a takeover at the National Museum Conference or the development of an award-winning multi-strand partnership programme bringing the arts, health and cultural sectors together. Responding to the needs of her local community, Hayley co-founded a grassroots, people-led charity, Creative Recovery that uses creativity to support recovery, boost wellbeing and bring about social change. With over 10 years’ experience of developing and delivering arts for health interventions within acute mental health settings, prisons and museums, Hayley has expertise and a deep understanding of the challenges that face the sector and the impact of this work. Her role as co-ordinator with the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance aligns with the vision and values that drive her to work to make the transformative power of creativity and culture accessible for all. https://www.culturehealthandwellbeing.org.uk/ https://hayleyyouell.com/