Arts in Health Summer School 2025
We have begun accepting applications for the 2025 Arts in Health Summer School! The School introduces students to the emerging field of arts in health, and how it uses creative practices to provide care, support wellbeing, and encourage healthy living. Students experience the theory, practice, and ethics of using the arts to support care and wellbeing.
“The Summer School brings together a diverse group of people, to build a common understanding of how arts is health works,” says Ferdinand Lewis, director of education for Arts in Health Netherlands (AiHN). “They leave the School as a community of learners, ready to explore how they might want to contribute to the field.”
The Summer School is designed for people at different points in their careers, and is open to mid-career graduates of MBO, HBO, and universities, as well as current students at any of those institutions. “Establishing a permanent place for the arts in our healthcare system will require professionals who can work across sectors, disciplines and traditional roles,” Lewis says.
The week-long summer school was first piloted in June of 2023. AiHN’s program director Kirsten Krans said, “We made 15 spaces available for students, and all of them were filled right away. So many people want to learn how the arts can support care in hospitals, long-term care, and in our communities!”
Since that 2023 pilot program, the Summer School has quickly evolved. In 2024, AiHN was awarded support from the University of Groningen to develop a formal summer school curriculum. AiHN partnered with the Aletta Jacobs School of Public Health, University College Groningen, Prins Claus Conservatorium; the Faculty of Religion, Culture & Society at the University of Groningen; the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam: and the University of Hamburg for the 2024 Summer School. Enrollment was increased to 25, for which the Summer School received more than 50 applications. Accepted students included visual and performance artists, medical doctors, social workers, university assistant professors, undergraduate students, administrators, and a Gronin poet. Lewis says, “In the Netherlands and EU, the Arts in Health field needs people from a variety of backgrounds, all learning and working together. The Summer School was created to facilitate that”.
The Summer School introduces students to the scientific research on how the arts are being used to re-humanise the health professions, to support wellness and recovery, and to encourage healthy living. The curriculum includes an innovative pedagogical approach that integrates the learning of theory and practice together in a unique workshop setting. “Students are immersed in the practice of arts in health right away,” Lewis explains, “while they are also learning the science and theory that explains the field. They follow up on those experiences with structured reflection, to integrate experience and knowledge”.
Each student is encouraged to formulate their own goals for working in the field. The School’s unique teaching-learning strategy, plus the wide diversity of backgrounds among the students, means that each graduate takes away their own set of tools, ideas, and inspirations. One graduate reported, “For me it was about getting to know what is out there in the field”, while in contrast, another student in the same cohort said that she learned how to work in the field of art in health, and to organise her own programmes.
Finally, all of the teaching and learning in the Arts in Health Summer School occurs in a community of people exploring their common passion for this exciting new field. Students who complete the School can receive an official ‘digital credential’ from the University of Groningen to use on CV’s. They also have the opportunity to join Arts in Health Netherlands’ national Arts in Health Learning Community, which meets every six weeks to share knowledge, discuss current issues, and build a network across the Netherlands and EU.
Sign up for the summer school here until April 20, 2025.
