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Our Health Depends on the Stories We Tell By Patti Fraser, Ph.D
The rainy drives over the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge remain one of the residing memories of my tenure as a community engaged artist in the Arts, Health, and Seniors Project at Silver Harbour Seniors Centre in North Vancouver, British Columbia. Driving across Burrard Inlet heading north towards the mountains of the coastal range. Each trip across the inlet is a reminder of how vulnerable our humanity is in the face of speeding rainswept traffic, how small we are when measured against the looming brace of coastal mountains, and how precious the ways in which we seek meaning in our lives that connect our vulnerable humanness to this large world.
The Arts, Health, and Seniors Project was created with the intention of contributing to the existing knowledge surrounding the connections between health and creativity with older adults. This three-year community-engaged arts research project was initially inspired by the findings of The Creativity and Aging Study.1 The findings of this research project concluded that quality programming in the arts has a significant impact on maintaining and potentially improving the physical, mental, and social health of the elderly. The Silver Harbour Digital Storytelling Group was one of the four sites that commissioned commun-
ity-engaged artists to work with seniors in the Arts, Health, and Seniors Project.2 In addition to community-engaged art practice sessions, the Silver Harbour Digital Storytelling Group also formed a peer-to-peer research inquiry that looked at how the re-fashioning of stories from lived experiences into sound and image could affect one’s health and well-being.3 The group began by defining health as encompassing physical, spiritual, and mental domains, rather than simply the absence of disease. This inquiry produced many anecdotal examples of how the participant’s sense of health and well-being was being affected by their participation
1According to The Creativity and Aging Study; The Impact of Professionally Conducted Cultural Programs on Older Adults (Cohen 2006), when communities of older adults gather to create meaning through an artistic practice; self-esteem is enhanced, feelings of isolation and alienation are relieved, prescription drug use is reduced, and falls are less frequent. Cohen’s study, conducted in three large American cities, represents one of the very few qualitative research projects dedicated to studying the effects of artistic practice on the health and well-being of older adults.
THE MUSE • SPRING 2017