Telling the Story of Arts and Health in South Australia

South Australia has a long and deep engagement with arts and health work in all its forms. The purpose of this report, funded by the Arts and Health Alliance at Flinders University, is to document as much of that work as possible, to glean from arts and health practitioners a sense of what created that strength and collaboration over decades, what threatened the work and what might be needed in order to take arts and health collaborations to the next phase. We hope this will help inform current and future work, allow newcomers to arts and health to understand some of the history
and help us collectively look for the strengths and challenges in productive ways.
While resisting a single definition, arts and health is broadly defined as using arts practice to deliver health outcomes, be they specifically targeted interventions or general wellbeing benefits.
We conducted interviews with 47 arts and health stakeholders who have contributed to the development of this field in the state. We asked them about their past experiences with arts and health, the present challenges and opportunities for the field, and how best to advance this work in the future. Our findings show that South Australia has a long, internationally significant history of arts and health work. There is a strong platform to build future arts and health success stories on, but this will require continuing engagement between on-the-ground arts and health workers, as well
as the recognition and support of those in key leadership positions.