Creativity & Wellbeing Week – what it means to us
At St Margaret's House, we believe in the transformative power of the arts and community connection to impact people’s physical and mental health and wellbeing.
The national festival of Creative Health, Creativity & Wellbeing Week, takes place in the penultimate week of May each year and is the perfect opportunity to highlight what we do alongside so many other brilliant organisations and practitioners up and down the country.
Organised by London Arts and Health and the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance, the festival champions and celebrates the creative activities that keep us healthy and well. We’re proud that London Arts and Health choose to make their work-home at SMH and we work in partnership with them to deliver a variety of work throughout the year.
The theme of this year’s festival, critical hope, is especially important to us at SMH. Our programme offers unique, meaningful, free or low-cost creative activities, rooted in social change, to support health and wellbeing. We aim to create social change by working towards a more inclusive and sustainable society: breaking down barriers, encouraging acceptance and tackling injustice; and advocating for the wellness of people and planet, empowering actions in others and preventing negative impact. Through critical hope, we know that our actions to bring about social change can be hopeful whilst simultaneously realistic and honest about the systemic injustices that make such feel impossible to realise.
In a time of extremes, finding the space for continued hope is an act of resistance and a search for unity.
St Margaret’s House: a home for Creative Health
Creative Health as a concept and practice is growing and evolving all the time and more and more people are recognising the benefit that the arts and creativity play in keeping us all healthy and well.
SMH is dedicated to improving and increasing the enjoyment and understanding of creative health activities and their integration into everyday practices in our local area and beyond – being part of Creativity and Wellbeing Week by hosting specific events and workshops is really important to us.
The Tower Hamlets Creative Health Forum
As part of Creativity and Wellbeing Week this year, we’ll be bringing local practitioners together for a Tower Hamlets Creative Health Forum networking session. We set up the THCH Forum just over a year ago, to bring together practitioners and organisations delivering creativity in Tower Hamlets with local people. We’ve been working together with 60 other representatives to create a Creative Health Strategy for the borough and this networking session is a chance for people to contribute if they would like.
Tower Hamlets is home to a broad range of cultural organisations who support local people. A strategic focus for the borough is for culture to support social cohesion and improve people’s wellbeing. Creative health harnesses the power of creative activities to prevent ill-health, promote wellbeing, and support recovery. The vision of the future is that people are healthier through person-centred approaches to improving everyone’s physical and mental health. The THCH Strategy will support local people to engage in creative activities that contribute to the prevention of ill-health at all life stages and support wellbeing of all. It will also address health inequalities and provide targeted programmes for those with the highest, most complex and intersectional needs. It will also focus on strengthening the skills of the workforce to deliver these activities and services, responding appropriately to varied health needs.
Creativity and Wellbeing Week Activities at SMH
For Creativity and Wellbeing Week we are also hosting a special afternoon session of our monthly evening Art Café. Join us on Thursday 21st May from 2.30-4.30pm. Our Art Café is a space for people from our community to come together to draw, to doodle, to create in different mediums, whilst also connecting to each other.We’ll also be inviting local social prescribers to try out one of our wellbeing sessions to support them to make the right referrals to us of people they are working with across Tower Hamlets, whilst looking after their own wellbeing at the same time.
Stories of Creativity and Wellbeing
To celebrate creativity and wellbeing, we also wanted to share some stories from different people involved at St Margaret’s House about what creativity means for their wellbeing, one for each day of this very special week:
Nihal J. Singh (Current SMH Artist in Residence):
“At the moment, I'm really enjoying the process of experimenting with music and electronic computing. I'm hoping to explore live musical performances that sync with interactive lights and moving objects, creating a nourishingly immersive experience. This has been really beneficial for my wellbeing, as it was a dream and vision that I had from over a decade ago to explore. I'm so unbelievably grateful to have a space from home to do this and support from the St Margaret's House team to start developing the initial intentions of my vision.”
Emma (Ayoka Volunteer from Phoenix Autism Trust College):
“My name is Emma and I volunteer at Ayoka. I like volunteering at Ayoka. It’s a nice place and has nice staff. I like to sweep the shop flit: it makes me feel strong and independent. It relaxes me when I sort through the rails and it makes me feel happy. I enjoy helping customers and being kind. I like to paint my nails: it helps me feel calm and confident. I like to choose different colours to paint my nails.”
Ele Loizides (SMH Facilities Coordinator):
“I’m an artist outside of my day job at SMH and art is incredibly important to my wellbeing. I have developed a mixed media practice which can range from including images I find on the internet to objects I find on the street. I made a small table by using a jigsaw puzzle I bought from Ayoka, our charity shop, and gluing it on the top of a wooden cable drum I found in a skip. It looked fun and had a practical use. I find recycling good for my soul. If we can turn thrown away objects into something interesting and useful then I feel the planet is a happier place. Just this weekend, I made a drum kit using a clothes drying rack, frying pans and other kitchen utensils.”
Toby Davies (Music Therapy Placement Student):
“I use music to support my wellbeing in all different aspects of my life. One of my favourite types of music to make is Dub - a style of reggae founded in Jamaica in the 1960s. The dub format allows me to experiment with musical arrangements in real-time which automatically shifts me into a mindful flow-state. I rarely record any dub tracks, but I find real satisfaction in the process.”
Rowan (Gallery Cafe Barista):
“Most nights, when my flatmate and I are back from work, we have a jam session on our little electric piano: ‘California’ by Joni Mitchell and our original, ‘Tonight’ (working title) are our favourites. This burst of creativity every evening helps us relieve stress and stay happy and well.”
Renee Rilexie (SMH Tenant):
“I believe in the healing power of art. For me, art serves as a powerful force that supports me through times of stress, grief, and anxiety. When words fail to express my emotions, art is my voice, allowing me to communicate how I feel. Painting, music and tactile materials are all mediums I use in my art practice, to connect and promote varied forms of expression for better wellbeing.”
Mythili Mahendran (SMH Trustee):
“Creativity is a healing practice, a way of expressing my humanity and a means of connection with the world around me. I compose and play music as a way of soothing myself, expressing how I feel and connecting with my body and mind. My creative practice has also allowed me to work with different people and learn about them in ways that have positively shaped my own development and understanding of the world. The ways in which I create music presently have had to change due to physical injuries. However, even playing an instrument for just a short time can soothe pain, calm the mind and connect me with the present moment. No matter what challenges life has presented, creativity has remained integral to my wellbeing and for maintaining my joie de vivre!”
So, now it’s over to you: What does creativity and wellbeing mean to you?
We’d love for you to let us know!