We have all read how art can help people, but I have never seen a government move to recommend and subsidize it. This has occurred in a small-town called Neuchatel, beneath a medieval castle and a lake by that same name in the French speaking part of Switzerland. I like the way the article starts: “The world’s woes got you down? Feeling burnout at work? Need a little something extra to fight illness or prep for surgery?” … Neuchatel is offering its residents a novel medical option: Expose yourself to art and get a doctor’s note to do it for free.”
I thought that could never happen in this country, but I was wrong. The prestigious Stanford University also has a program for its community. It has teamed up with Art Pharmacy, an organization which according to its website, “enables personalized social prescribing services with healthcare, university, corporate, and government partners.”
https://www.artpharmacy.co
The Stanford program offers an arts prescription which is a set of engagements in the arts customized to your personal interest. Each engagement is called a dose. You are assigned to an Art Pharmacy Navigator who will get you free tickets or whatever other access you may need. After you have fulfilled your prescription, you can apply for a renewal. To me it sounds like a good way for student and teacher alike to cope with the stress of campus life.
There is a different program called CultureRx out of Massachusetts which has brought together 12 cultural organizations with 20 healthcare providers across the state allowing the latter to write prescriptions that might benefit their patients. The medical practitioners welcomed the plan as they saw the pleasure their patients got from enjoying the arts without the expense. I am guessing that most who are reading “Missives from the Art World” have the where with all to not have to worry about this expense but how many in the general population can afford the high entry costs for many museums or the price of theater tickets?
Another organization I never would have thought existed is Johns Hopkins University’s International Arts+Mind Lab (IAM Lab) an “interdisciplinary research-to-practice initiative accelerating the field of neuroaesthetics”. Their work focuses on “social prescribing” which includes art, music culture, nature, and social connections. All these have been shown to have important health benefits.