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Hot Links | Createquity on The Impact of the Arts and Culture

“Arts participation contributes directly to quality of life by increasing self-reported happiness and life satisfaction.”

— Createquity

Our Founder, Sacha Wynne, recently had the honor of collaborating with Createquity’s research and editorial teams on a few articles.  This includes a recently published feature article that explores the impact of participatory arts activities on the health and quality of life of older adults. 

From Createquity: 

With both the U.S. and global populations aging in unprecedented numbers, this article sheds light on the promise of participatory arts activities in alleviating some of the challenges that come with getting older, and the ever-growing need for creative aging. 

In particular, the evidence on participatory arts activities and the health and quality of life of older adults indicates that:

            • Singing improves mental health and subjective wellbeing (i.e., perceived quality of life)

            • Taking dance classes bolsters cognition and motor skills, and even lessens the likelihood of developing dementia later in life

            • Playing a musical instrument has myriad positive effects, including dementia risk reduction

            • Visual arts practice generates increases in social engagement, psychological health and self-esteem

Just how the arts benefit society is one of the most studied topics in arts research…[Createquity] has sought to determine how the arts contribute to or detract from wellbeing in various ways, and the strength of the evidence supporting each mechanism. 

This week, Createquity released another article and an infographic summarizing their findings to date.  Per Createquity, “this will be the world's first resource that not only depicts the state of evidence demonstrating the various benefits of the arts, but tracks shifts in that evidence base over time.”

We encourage you to explore the findings of these pivotal reports.

The WÆRK Team 

Weekly Links | Hopeful Perspectives | Humanity at Work | Participatory Lit Fun

What captured out attention on the web this week?  Opinion pieces, news items and events that are focused on bringing people together through our most fundamental means: art and hope.

We were heartened by Rebecca Solnit’s piece on hopefulness in action, in our tumultuous times.

We were introduced to the work of the Be Human Project and its mission to make the workforce more human-centered.

We marked our calendars for the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture’s participatory lit event this Sunday (July 24th) in Brooklyn, NY.

Have a wonderful weekend!

-WAERK

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