Free State Arts and Health Programme
The International Institute of the Arts (IIA), through its strategic partnerships with the Vrystaat Arts Festival, is advancing an Arts and Health initiative that positions creativity at the centre of wellbeing. South Africa faces profound challenges in health and social cohesion. The arts have a unique capacity to address these challenges by enabling communities to tell their own stories, process collective trauma, and imagine new possibilities for the future. Projects such as the Platfontein Print Project, where First Nation youth collaborated with elders to preserve oral histories through visual art, illustrate how creative practice can renew cultural identity while strengthening resilience.
Initiated through a bilateral partnership between DADAA, Australia and the Vrystaat Arts Festival, supported by the Mellon Foundation through the University of the Free State’s Programme for Innovation and Artform Development (PIAD) in 2016. The Free State Arts & Health Programme has invested in developing the practice and discourse that has empowered Community Arts and Development Practitioners through training in Arts and Health practice methodologies; and acting as a point of contact for national discourse, through summits and newsletters.
The IIA’s, through its partnerships, continues to grow this national hub for the Arts and Health practice, driving the growth through four projects:
Project A: Practice Development, Skills Transfer and Collaboration
Acts as a national point of contact by investing in linkages that strengthen practice and open opportunities for collaboration. Core elements include the Arts and Health Summits and the Arts and Health Newsletter, which sustain dialogue, reflection, and knowledge-sharing across local and international contexts.
Project B: Community-led, Artist-facilitated Interventions
Supports artists working directly with communities to co-develop creative responses to local needs. These interventions are rooted in community knowledge while guided by artistic expertise, with emphasis on capacity-building, mentorship, and collaborative production.
Project C: Platfontein Print Project
Engages !Xun and Khwe youth in visual storytelling to preserve cultural heritage and strengthen intergenerational cohesion. Developed with local and national partners, the project demonstrates the role of art in cultural preservation and community resilience.
Project D: Arts-based Public Health Promotion
Builds platforms for collaboration between health workers, artists, and community activists to design responsive, inclusive, and culturally grounded health campaigns. This approach ensures health messaging that is community-led, resonant, and emotionally engaging.
Together, these projects form a framework through which the IIA and its partners consolidate South Africa’s position as a continental leader in Arts and Health, creating sustainable pathways for cross-sectoral interventions that strengthen wellbeing locally and connect meaningfully with global practice. The impact is multifaceted: communities empowered to participate in their own wellbeing, practitioners equipped to collaborate across sectors, and South Africa positioned as a continental leader in the field of Arts and Health. For the partners and stakeholders that support this initiative, this represents an opportunity to support a programme that advances intercultural dialogue, builds bridges between art and science, and fosters health consumer agency. These collective investments contributed to an ever evolving national framework with international reach, creating sustainable pathways for cross-sectoral creative interventions that advances health and wellbeing in South Africa and beyond