How are museums and culture related to health and well-being?

Welcome to Museums in Chile. I podcast by the International Council of Museums where we talk everything and anything museums, this is Ana Paula from Icom. And today's guest is Professor Ellen Chatterjee. Professor of Human and Ecological Health, an author of the book Museums, Health and Wellbeing. Welcome Professor and thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me, it's great to be here. For starters, can you tell us a bit of how are museums and culture related to health and wellbeing? Well I think they're really fundamental and we have these amazing assets in our museums and our heritage sites and those spaces and what they contain in them and I think the contributions that they can make to our health and wellbeing are really fundamental. What we found really is that those spaces and those collections and the messages that are contained within that and the stories can be really instrumental in terms of enabling people to kind of access a greater understanding of their health, improving their health if that's what they want to do or simply having that wider understanding of wellbeing and what it means to be able to engage with your wellbeing. And I think many museums are already doing fantastic work around what we might call public health or the health of the public and that's what we've been really interested in. And where are these initiatives that museums have been doing? Can you talk about that a bit? Well we've seen just so many different examples, sometimes very much focused on individual programmes of activity targeting specific groups of people. So lots of work around working with people with dementia, working with mental health service users, but a real variety of different ways that museums and heritage organisations and arts organisations are engaging. A lot of it is quite focused on specific programmes of activity like I say. It might be six weeks of doing art making or collections based activities, tours and talks. And some of the most interesting programmes I think are those ones that really take advantage of all the many different assets that we have within our spaces and within our collections and actually within our staff and the museums and heritage professionals that are housed within them. So just really exciting examples in different museums all over the world actually that we've talked to and work with where they're making use of all those assets and doing exciting things from collections based work, art making craft, gardening, other sorts of creative outputs through to things like meditation and dance and performance. So I think just really exciting opportunities where those spaces, those collections and that heritage and that history can help inform really exciting programming. What we found in our research is that when people engage on multiple levels, for example, there's lots of opportunities to do really exciting learning and that involves lots of cognitive, deep level thinking, meaning making connection with identity. As alongside activities, perhaps they involve a physical element and perhaps for people who are not able to do something that involves their hands because that involves things like hand-eye coordination, it involves things like, for example, precision grip. So those sorts of physical tasks alongside this cognitive or brain activity in an environment which is kind of enjoyable, it's creative and it's also social. What we've seen is we can see really amazing benefits in terms of very specific aspects of health and wellbeing. We see improvements in psychological health and wellbeing, people's perceptions of how well they feel. We've seen improvements in people's perceptions, for example, of how connected they feel, reducing isolation, reducing loneliness, opportunities to socialise, helping to improve things like not just connectivity, but social skills. The learning opportunities, providing opportunities they to think about your own identity, but also where you're at in your life and, for example, giving you perhaps the impetus to get into volunteering or perhaps even get you into work or back into work if you've not been able to work. So these are really important outcomes that affect not just specific aspects of physical health or mental health, but also what we call the wider determinants of health. So I think museums and heritage organisations have got a really great opportunity to advocate for that really core role that they can play in society that contributes not even just to health and wellbeing, but actually to society and the economy. How do you think museums can approach the fact that sometimes they can be overwhelming or people can feel like it's not their space because they might need information to be there because if they don't know about the artists, whether they don't know about the space that might not be able to appreciate it all because I feel like they are excellent spaces for people to reconnect, but at the same time, if you don't have this freedom of just feeling like you can embrace a space, it can be overwhelming for people to arrive at a place and be like, "Oh my God, this is so huge because then we have this amazing places and buildings that are huge and sometimes even just arriving to the place and looking at it could be very overwhelming." How do you think museums can approach that? Yeah, I absolutely agree. We in a lot of the audiences and a lot of the research that we've done has been very much focused on working with museums who are looking to tackle exactly that issue. You know, they're working perhaps with communities, individuals, populations where those individuals are not kind of everyday users, they're not regularly users and in many of the projects we've worked in, it's people who've never visited a museum before or if they have, they've been once perhaps when they were a child, but they don't see themselves as a museum girl or they wouldn't go and visit a monument or a heritage site because they don't see it as for them and we've been interested in what those barriers are and for us it's been, I guess, the key learning that we've had from working with museums and participants' communities has been around the partnership with perhaps those organisations who are connected in with some of those, what you might call hard to reach or marginalised communities, who have expertise of working with vulnerable communities. So for example, for people who may be isolated or lonely, perhaps linking up, say, with a local community organisation that has already built that trust and that level of responsibility of understanding what it means to build a safe environment and of course an accessible environment and working with those participants really in terms of forging those links to understand what those barriers might be for them because it could be both physical as you say, it could be psychological and if you genuinely want to open your doors to a diverse community, then you need to understand all of those communities needs and of course the best way to do that is by simply asking them and what will encourage them into that space and we've seen that that sort of partnership working with those communities and with those organisations that perhaps have already built that trust is a really great way to break down those barriers. Now that you mentioned considering and asking, we had an episode on this post that we talked about how museums can be more welcoming and I remember our guest Kate talking about how important it is to acknowledge that there are different ways of people appreciating what they're seeing because even just touching because then we have different ways of learning, different ways of appreciating whether it's in audio, in video, in looking at something, touching something, how would you connect the importance of acknowledging this different ways of experiencing, actually providing this space? Yeah, I think that is really important and it comes down again, I think, to discussing and communicating with that audience because you're right, not everybody is necessarily, you know, if they're visiting art museums they might think well I'm not interested in that particular art or I'm not interested in art generally but I think that's where it comes into that consultation with programme design so asking the participants because maybe those particular artworks are not going to stimulate them, that particular space they're not going to find stimulating or they find intimidating and so I think it's important again in that element of co-designing and co-producing something that is meaningful for those audiences and I know that is time consuming and it's very resource intensive but the sorts of examples we've seen where that has happened, they build really long and lasting and trusting relationships with their communities, I mean the sorts of examples that I can draw from from the UK places like what was in Canterbury which is a small town in the south of England in Kent and their local authority museum which can take a lot of kind of local history, social history but a lot of artworks and what they've done over many years is looking to break down those barriers, get people through their front door into a kind of older building that you know might have accessibility issues and it's been through building programmes of trust and programmes that are meaningful for those audiences and that is included doing things like gardening, doing things like craft activities like knitting, having coffee mornings so it might not just be around art appreciation or even art making, it might be like a wider diversity and they've evolved that through that consultation with those participants, those communities they're looking to reach out to and those partners and we've seen that being really effective and then those communities really valuing that museum and as a space where they feel like they're welcomed and they feel like it's the home and you know they really value it as part of maintaining that health and well-being. Yeah it brings me back to something that I don't remember what I heard it but how museums can really re-vive the community where they are. I remember visiting Amisium in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. It was a very interesting museum because what they were showcasing was every single part and the history of the Fabela's and how they are being perceived and how they are changing. In this space basically created a historic and also an archive of their own story to show to other people and to be able to communicate what they've wanted to show from their community because it's always things can always be portrayed differently from an outsider and I feel like museums have become a space and have always been a space to show case what they have in their own community and which also reminds their own reinforcement of what you're saying of the co-working with the community but who actually impacts the value and the importance of their museum itself or the cultural institutions that can work on it. Well I think it's really interesting because even the term museum or heritage you know it means different things to different people but that can be off-putting so again back to that example I talked about in Canterbury which was their local history you know museum. They changed their name they did a lot of consultation and they're now called the Beanie House of Art and Knowledge and it's that idea of shifting from shifting I guess the narrative and what that organisation looks like how it's perceived by that community and reestablishing themselves as a kind of seat of learning and a seat of some where you go to think about well-being and think about identity and meaning making so why it's not just about artworks that might be from an artist that you might not you may or may not be interested in but it's more about a place where you go from enrichment and I really like that idea and I think that's what museums are but of course the word museum doesn't always mean that to everybody and we're of course very privileged to have you know experience of visiting many many different types sizes varieties of museums across the world but not everybody has that privilege so I think that's where the real opportunities are particularly around mental health because I really do think that things like museums I would also extend that to all that sort of wider heritage libraries archives you know they have got a significant role to play in society and tackling some of these really big issues around I would say not just mental health but also different aspects of physical health and like I say these wider what we call social determinants of health because we now know that over 80% of our health is actually determined not simply by physical ill health but actually by these wider determinants so where you live where you're born where you grow up things like what kind of house you live in what kind of accommodation you have the quality of that accommodation so the environment that you live in and so that's where these sorts of what we often refer to as community assets I think have got a real opportunity to reposition themselves as really vital community assets like we know that example you talked about in Brazil where there's that real opportunity to help communities that are very poor potentially that have you know lack of opportunities that can help those individuals and those communities you know have optimism and have hope opportunities for learning opportunities for connecting and I think that's such a great social opportunity isn't it to to bring about change for the good yes of course I feel like for us I would have never imagined going to a museum for example in the favelas in this case because then you think of the favelas at space that it's unapproachable and then you get this chance of going and seeing everything and then you get the opportunity to learn from something that you would have never imagined itself and I feel like that might happen in many other scenarios, many other spaces which then again just proves the importance of museums and how they can reach an immense amount of people that you never know are aware or unaware of what they're displaying so the role museums can take infosterating this cross-cultural understanding and promoting can be very overwhelming as well for museum professionals maybe so how do you think it can be the other way around for the staff and for the museum workers yeah I think that's a really good question because what we've seen is that those museums that have really had a kind of fundamental strategic shift in how they work that's where they've seen the biggest changes and in many cases that has meant you know a complete reorganization of that place of that organization changing things like job descriptions changing things like job titles and one of the museums we work with a lot is a wit with a museum in Manchester and Art Gallery in Manchester it's surrounded by a really nice park and they went quite through quite a fundamental change in their strategy really embedding health and well-being in community at the heart of kind of everything they did and we've seen that time and time again and that can be uncomfortable I think you know for example if you're a conservator or you know a curator and your job description suddenly changes to embedding health and well-being for example you know what does that mean for you in terms of your expertise your skillset you know you're just your day-to-day working and what your responsibilities are so I think it can be uncomfortable but I think it is absolutely essential and again where we've seen that happening really well we've seen such significant impacts that the museum can have another museum we work with a lot here in the UK and Tine and Weir the northeast of England in Newcastle they've got a whole different set of museums eight or nine museums across the region and again it initially it was just one museum educator who you know 15 years ago was really passionate about working with communities doing really interesting work around working with stroke survivors people with dementia homeless people people dealing with addiction and recovery and she just as a one-month bond you know built up these amazing programs and now the whole museums have health and well-being embedded throughout their strategy through their programming they've had you know 10 years or more of this kind of programming they've seen funding up lifts thanks to that kind of work and I think a real shift in attitude towards the museum so I think the great thing about that is it shows that individual museum professionals can make a change I think it also needs to be you know leadership from the top we do need to see our museum directors and chairs of boards of trustees and funders recognizing this really important role that museums can play and supporting their staff in that journey and that may need involved things like you know giving training opportunities it may involve things like thinking about safeguarding because obviously working with vulnerable populations can't it we know is very challenging and requires support for the staff and so we need to think about all of that those sort of wider if you like scaffolding challenges but I think it's a really important thing for museums to go through and we're seeing more and more examples of museums doing that creating new posts health and well-being posts we see that we've seen that all across the world in many museums that we're working on and I think that's a really positive yeah and have you heard on this recently actually last year at Icon we we saw this initially from the government of in Brussels because it was created there this initiative of press-cribing museums from Mendenheld which I think then talks about the importance of going beyond the museum community on pushing for these initiatives not only the museum's cultural venues but the kairops in the same region or spaces. I think it's really important because those collaborations also need to work not just with those communities they're looking to to connect with as well as the you know the senior management across the museum but also that wider community sector you know like I mentioned sort of it could be charities you know we're seeing many examples of that across the world of museums having much much closer links with other organisations in the community and critically those organisations that are responsible for health and the wider health of the public so that might be you know health authorities it might be psychological services counseling services it might be for example the local authority who has responsibility say for social care it might be care homes and of course you know working with care homes and working around dementia has been a big area of work for for several museums now across the world over many years but I think it's you know they're not without challenges especially when you're working with vulnerable populations and that's really where the partnership with those health partners is really really crucial because they have the expertise so they understand what those challenges and barriers but also what the opportunities are and so they can be great advocates for the museum and that's where that co-design element comes in so both with the participants experiencing that from the communities and those wider community and health partners so you know that's it's a lot of work I think for museums that's a real shift and what we found is that requires time, investment, support, training and we've observed that it takes you know often you know up to a year to build those sorts of new partnerships and then of course sustaining and maintaining them is a big job so it really does require this quite big strategic shift I think in the mode that the museum programs it's work the way it's funded what kinds of funding but we're starting to see more and more examples that again across the world of museums that are accessing money that for health, money that is for safe, for example, prescribing, by making a link with some a health partner who can refer patients into the museum. But that's where that element of co-design comes in. You really do have to go through that process, which is very time resource intensive. But I think there can be really fantastic benefits for all those parties and most importantly for those communities that they're looking to reach out to. I think it also can be very overwhelming for museum professionals, for any institution to want to have initiatives and to want to provide these spaces. But then thinking, "Oh my God, it's taking so long. When are we doing it?" And then it's also important for their own and our own mental health. Understand that it takes time and it's okay, because then you can provide an actual collaborative project, an actual prepared project rather than just wanting to launch something for the good of the community. But if it's fast, it might not have everything that you could have prepared. If you waited a bit more. So I think that's also very important, not only. So thank you for bringing that up, because then it allows people to take a breath and just be like, "Okay, then we can sit down and prepare it with time and actually identify what are the needs of a community, what are our own needs as well." Thank you so much. We've come to the last part of our episode. So we have this section called "Rapetire Questions", where we basically ask our guests for recommendations so that our community can further more their experience on the subject. So as first question, I would like you to share a museum I know you already did during the conversation, but another one that you might think is already doing quick practices involving health on their program or anything. I guess a good one to talk about is Liverpool Museums and their house that memory is project. You've probably come across that and heard about it already before. It was very much inspired by MoMA Museum of Modern Art in the USA, their Alzheimer's programme that they run. And I guess what's amazing about it is, again, we talk about the single museum professional often when we're operating a low wall sometimes. And certainly I was in that case when I was running a museum in our university, as a Waller Gym Museum. You have very limited time resources funding, but what can be achieved and Carol Rogers who set their programme up, it's called "House of Memories". And you know, she's expanded across the world. You know, she goes off to Singapore, USA, all over the world, speaking to people about the programme and helping them set up their own programme. And in a way, the kind of target audience, it's very much focused around care homes, it's very much focused around building this idea of museum collections, loan boxes, care boxes, focused around kind of heritage, working within care homes and working with care homes professionals to give them the kind of tools. And just that idea that just one person can stimulate a whole programme and it's been running for many, many years. Yeah, that's great. Can you also talk about maybe a song recommendation that you will give to experience museum beyond words, whether you can experience physically there? Oh heck, I think it would have to be. I can't think of a specific song. I mean, it would probably be for me, so something like, you know, from Johns Hopkins who they've done music for. I forgot what the album's called, but music for psychotherapy. And that kind of, you know, it's very ambient, it's very meditative. And I really like that. And I'm so glad you brought up the yoga. And we've seen really lovely examples of, you know, meditation going on a museum. And I, especially when I visit, you know, heritage sites, I find that really lovely to be able to combine that, you know, sound and heritage. And there's so, so many lovely apps and experiences out there, aren't there? And there's great opportunities, I think, for building that into sort of well-being, improving your well-being. I feel like that's great. I mean, we all have different vibes, you know, like we all enjoy different rhythms around different spaces. Like it might be so obvious for someone to like exercise with, I don't know, the electronic music within for someone else is doing it with classical music. We don't know. Thank you so much for turning into this episode of "Miss Sins and Shield". We hope you enjoy this conversation with Professor Edden. And don't forget to tune in for our next episode. Thank you so much, Professor, for joining us. Thanks for having me. It's been great to be here. [Music]