ART/DATA/HEALTH

Data as creative material for health and wellbeing

The artist of STARTS Residency “Cyber-Species Proximity”, Anna Dumitriu, is participating in a new project that uses health data as the source of experiential stories and as the source material for creative expression -the ART/DATA/HEALTH Project (ADH). 

In a series of participatory workshops, this interdisciplinary project will bring together local communities, services, artists, and researchers to explore health and wellbeing issues through a combination of creative media, storytelling and data science. From the data the project collects and analyses, the team will produce creative work that engages others in thinking about health and wellbeing, but also inform policies and strategies that aim at improving the health and wellbeing of local communities.

Why the ADH Team believes this is important?

They present three main reasons for bringing cultural participation, data science and digital inclusion together for health and wellbeing:

• First, there is strong evidence showing that participation in the creative arts can help promote well-being and health in communities, and can be particularly beneficial for disadvantaged groups (in terms of age, disability, income and unemployment). As technologies change, there are new questions that art and humanities research can help us address in relation to health and wellbeing. Arts-based inquiry that involves health data analysis can be an innovative intervention for public health projects.
• Second, critical health literacy is considered key to empowerment, as it not only improves people’s capacity to use health information, but also helps them gain greater control over life events. But as health promotion and communication moves to a digitised era, health literacy today includes the capacity to efficiently use digital health technologies and being able to critically analyse information presented online. In Britain, 12.6 million people lack digital skills and they are most likely to suffer from poor health, while in most cases they also belong in disadvantaged social groups.
• Third, today scientific data and statistics of all sorts are being used in infographics, data journalism, design and art in order to create meaning from the deluge of big data. Data is considered the material of our times. Data-based art can help raise awareness about the ethical, social and cultural issues of personalised medicine, but is however still missing from public health, community-based initiatives.

Curious about the project?

Find all the details on the ADH website: www.artdatahealth.org
Know also more about Cyber-Species Proximity Residency, which brings together the artists Anna Dumitriu and Alex May & the Tech Project from Schindler.