'Reimagining Arts Education: From the Education of the Senses to Creative Health'

Cussans, John ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1856-9460 (2025) 'Reimagining Arts Education: From the Education of the Senses to Creative Health'. In: Have Some Imagination: Towards a Manifesto for Arts Education, February 7th & 8th 2025, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

Contemporary British culture is wrought with seemingly intractable economic conflicts and social inequities, particularly in the areas of education, health and the arts. Yet despite poor prospects of future financial rewards, young people still choose creative arts degrees all over the UK.

The values that bring young people into arts education - improving mental health, meaning, non-conformity, play, self-expression, social critique, social justice – have all been embedded in the arts since the beginning of 20th century, but they fall outside accountable metrics of the socio-economic good.

Paradoxically, as regional arts programs struggle to survive, the government’s Creative Health agenda is gaining national momentum. Is there a way for us to revitalise the 19th century ideal of art as an “education of the senses”, reconnect it to the broader project of improving individual and social wellbeing though increased sensory awareness and embodied cognition, and align it more closely with Creative Health?

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