NeuroArts Blueprint: Advancing the Science of Arts, Health, and Wellbeing

description

The NeuroArts Blueprint: Advancing the Science of Arts, Health, and Wellbeing is a broad interdisciplinary initiative designed to showcase the scientific evidence that explains why and how engaging with art, either as maker or user, can help us thrive. A partnership between the Johns Hopkins International Arts + Mind Lab Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics and the Aspen Institute’s Health, Medicine & Society Program, the program engages leading brain scientists, performers, arts educators, and practitioners to “drive the paradigm shift necessary to fully integrate arts and aesthetic experiences into activities that will advance individual and collective health across the planet.”  After two years of identifying the state of current research, convening specialists and practitioners, and conducting surveys regarding the needs for a cross-cutting field of NeuroArts, the initiative has published the NeuroArts Blueprint, a roadmap to building the field.

The NeuroArts Blueprint opens with the statement “At the core of being human, the arts are a vibrant path to health, community and possibility.”  It reviews current work on brain science,  identifies gaps in policies, knowledge and fiscal support, and references effective and replicable practices, with the goal of creating “the conditions for a deep commitment to neuroarts, in all its transformative power.”  An implementation phase is underway, including further research, training and  “practice components of the field.”  Although the Blueprint does not precisely target the ways in which engagement with the arts impacts the lives and health of older people, it provides powerful context for institutional and community based arts activities that contribute to positive aging.  Overall, it provides an important new development in our collective effort to build recognition, evidence and practice in creative aging.

 

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subject terms

Aging & Longevity

Aging & Longevity > Health: Brain & Mental

Aging & Longevity > Positive Aging

Community Engagement

Community Engagement > Community Based Learning

Creative Aging

Creative Aging > Arts Education

related organizations

Aspen Institute’s Health, Medicine & Society Program

Johns Hopkins International Arts + Mind Lab Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics

resource type

Programs and Initiatives

year

2021

keywords

Neuroaesthetics, NeuroArts Blueprint