Thursday, May 31, 2012

Twist Series: How to Keep Your Twists Stretched

Disclaimer: For some ladies, doing this method nightly may result in over manipulation of the hair and possible breakage.  Know your hair and what it can handle.  This method may work just fine for some but not for others.  Enjoy!




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Mixology || Natural Hair Grease

Do you want a hair grease without the mineral oil? Well below is a recipe for a homemade hair grease with natural ingredients.  (This recipe is from Lolazabeth.com.)

Ingredients:
2oz lanolin oil
1 oz raw, unrefined shea butter
1/4 oz extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp apple pie spice (optional)

Instructions:
Heat and melt the shea butter using a double boiler, or improvised double boiler method.  Stir in remaining ingredients, pour into container and allow to cool.  Add fragrance when mixture is reasonable cool and begins to thicken and solidify (optional).

FOR MORE RECIPES:  Lolazabeth Hair Care Recipes

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Tuesday, May 29, 2012

A Step in the Right Direction for Interprofessional Education


Valerie P. Pracilio, MPH
Project Manager for Quality Improvement

On May 18th, close to 250 professionals gathered together on the Jefferson campus in Philadelphia to explore ways to redefine education and practice to focus on interprofessional collaboration.

The conference, sponsored by the Jefferson InterProfessional Education Center (JCIPE), attracted key leaders in interprofessional education, including Dr. Carol Aschenbrener from AAMC and Dr. Susan Meyer from the University of Pittsburgh. There is clearly an impetus for change to bring professionals from different disciplines together to practice collaboratively for the benefit of their patients.

Both Dr. Aschenbrener and Dr. Meyer were integral in the development of interprofessional core competencies, which were released a year ago. The competencies serve as the framework for collaborative practice and set the stage for the meeting.  The program highlighted experiences of professionals working to educate and assess competency at their institutions.

A few take-home insights from the conference include:
  • Leadership is needed at the faculty level to integrate interprofessional practice  into the curriculum. Faculty leading those efforts should also represent multiple disciplines.
  • Improvement methodologies such as complexity science and TeamSTEPPS  – a teamwork system designed for health care professionals –  were given as examples of useful tools for collaboration.
  • Students are interested in opportunities to engage with their colleagues through practical experiences, including interactions with patients and opportunities to discuss clinical experiences and challenges.

Dr. Aschenbrener said, “The closer we move toward integration the less team-based care will be an option – it will become a requirement."

Interprofessional collaboration presents an enormous opportunity to learn from one another. Let’s make it happen!

Fitness + Health

By Stephanie of Infinite Life Fitness

When it comes to achieving your health and fitness goals, working out is only HALF of the battle. The most important thing that you HAVE to change is your diet.

For instance…I had a friend who came to me for health and fitness advice. She was gaining weight BUT she was working out 4 to 5 days a week. For a whole week I told her to write down what she did for exercise and to keep a food log of everything that she ate during that week. I took a look at her workout routine and it was a high intensity workout routine which included lifting weights 3 days a week. I then took a look at her diet and that is when I knew what the problem was. She would have these amazing workouts but then go enjoy Philly cheese steak sandwiches and meat lover’s pizzas before and after her workouts.

You cannot expect to see positive health and fitness results if you continue to eat junk food, greasy food, or highly processed foods. I have tried altering the way the people I help think about eating healthier. Instead of using the phrase “you are on a diet”…I like to use “You are eating healthy”.

I DO NOT like the phrase “I am on a diet”. Eating healthy is a lifestyle…not a fad that you will do for a few weeks and then go back to eating all the crappy food you were eating before. There are TONS of healthy clean foods that taste just as good as the junk food you use to eat. You just have to find out what YOU like and stick to having them in your menu.


What is eating Healthy?

This is when you supplement your meals with natural foods. Foods that are not highly processed, low in fats and sugars, and optimal fuel for your body. These types of food include fruits, vegetables, complex carbohydrates, and lean proteins. You can start to eat better by purchasing, cooking, and eating more fresh fruits and vegetables. You can cook meals with whole grains and lean meats. This will also include snacking on healthier meals and consuming MORE water during the day.


I assure you, your health and fitness goals with be so much easier if you decide to adopt a healthier menu than what most people tend to eat. It is OK to cheat and have your favorite piece of cake or other treats…but this should be done as little as possible (like once every 4 weeks!).

YES…this will be hard to do at first. But, if you stick to it, the easier it is to turn down those less healthy food options. To help you get in the habit of eating healthy, try not to keep “bad” food around you (in your kitchen, at your work, etc.). Try to keep only the healthy options you can eat around. When you go out to eat, make sure that the place you are eating has meal options that have fresh entrees.

If you need further help there is a great article here:
http://www.prevention.com/food/healthy-eating-tips/healthy-eating-23-ways-eat-clean/1-apples

Also check out this site for some healthy/clean food options:
http://livelifeactive.com/2012/02/29/eating-clean-approved-foods-list/

This is Stephanie coming to your from Infinite Life fitness. Please feel free to stop by my site http://infinitelifefitness.com for more health and fitness related tips.

Protective Style Lookbook || 20+ Styles on Braids & Twists

By popular demand, this is a series showcasing various protective hair styles.  Protective styling does not have to be boring. :o)

Model: Pookinapp16

Style description: Various styles on mini braids and mini twists.

Difficulty level: 1-3 out of 5





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Monday, May 28, 2012

AMOUR, My Last Car, thoughts on Neuroscience, RNCM Concerts at Manchester Hospitals and New Opportunities...

Over the last few months, meeting Richard Creme and being part of that group of people who worked with him to get his exhibition together, was such an eye opener - such a rich treat. It’s got me thinking though. Stroke, like any health crisis or disease that affects our brain, has such a profound impact on who we are and how we’re perceived. I constantly meet people who want to talk about their practice and evidencing the impact of their work on people who may be experiencing dementia, or may have had a stroke.  It’s always interesting and really varied: musicians, film-makers, poets and painters. More often than not, people will bring up the idea of recruiting a neuroscientist as part of the research team - someone to sit alongside the health economist, to take their hypothesis further: provide the empirical evidence of arts intrinsic value.

Like everyone, I’m seduced by the shimmering possibilities of medicines new frontier, of a pulsing supernova at the heart of our being - the dancing, golden synapse - the phrenological centres of our individuality. Compartments for love, pleasure, remorse and so much more...


So it was with great interest, that I read  an article by Vaughan Bell who’s a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London, and who suggests that the data that scientists pull from fMRI brain scans, isn’t always reliable, and as I’ve discussed before, like the Randomised Controlled Trials (RCT) - are subject to cultural issues including the incentives offered by the  industry. Just think of the unreported negative findings in pharmaceutical trials; Seroxat and Reboxetine being just two. Bell’s article which focuses on brain scans specifically, does make me feel that whilst the range of scanners that exist as diagnostic tools are reaping significant results, the exploration of what it is to be human, is ever-so-slightly more complicated. His article, which illustrates the increasing use of neuro-imaging in deciding the guilt of prisoners in India, Italy and the US, opens up an interesting and worrying debate.


Over the last decade i’ve seen increasing calls to legitimize the arts in relation to health and well-being, particularly calls to standardise what it is we do, so that the NHS can embrace our agenda. Increasingly this is an aspiration to gain NICE approval, through RCT’s, or perhaps sometimes spurious evidence that art lights up the brain. I’d suggest that whilst there is space for intelligent collaborations between artists and scientists, in focusing solely on evidencing arts value, we’re missing the point - isn’t our work about exploring that liminal space between the arts, science and what it is to be human? Standardised repeat prescriptions for the arts, and reductive understanding of its value, risk reducing us down to a simmering stew of amino acids...

MY LAST CAR Looking Well, Bentham                  30th May - 2nd June

Do you remember your first car? How about your last?

My Last Car is an epic road trip that explores the life and death of the car through a series of poignant, funny and uplifting tales.  Our voyage is part exhibition, part live performance and part community celebration. It explores all that the car means to us at the end of a great transport era. We have carefully dismantled a Rover 316 Cabriolet and filled a gallery with thousands of car objects. From wipers and cogs, windows and springs to camshafts, pistons and filters. Each part is labeled with messages and stories, facts and dreams about cars. The car becomes becomes the stage set for our performances. We tell tales of cars both good and bad. We look at the future and what it might hold. We share moments of magic, mystery and and motorway madness.

There is so much to do! Celebrate My Last CARnival: a festival of events and activities on the streets of Bentham, attend My Last Car Live Performances, and visit My Last Car – The Exhibition. My Last CARnival is a lighthearted celebration of life in a town with and without cars. It tips its hat to the trusty motor car and celebrates other ways of moving around. Get out of your car and discover a Boom Bike and a bus-shaped bus shelter or journey through space and time for a pound. Walk or bike the CARnival trails, meet ‘The Queen’ and happen across film, sculpture and performances in unexpected places!

Bentham Town Hall has been chosen as one of only two places in North Yorkshire to host My Last Car, the original performance and exhibition by 509 Arts as part of imove – Yorkshire’s Cultural Olympiad programme. Inspired by read stories of break ups and break downs, crashes and jams, it celebrates and questions our relationship with the car over years and across generations. Bentham will be the canvas for installations created in unexpected venues within walking distance the My Last Car event. My Last CARnival is a lighthearted celebration of life in a town with and without cars. It tips its hat to the trust motor car and celebrates other ways of moving around. http://www.mylastcar.co.uk/
If you visit the My Last Car website, you can upload your own car story! Here's a snippet from mine.

'Once upon a time, I held down two jobs - one in Cornwall, the other in Manchester. It was ridiculous. One week here, the other week there. I chose to drive between the two at night to avoid the traffic jams and snarl-ups. I slept in the afternoon, drove through the night. A pattern, a habit. Full moon over the M6, sunrise over Bodmin: perfect.
One night, (at Junction 17 to be precise) driving the same old routine - my yellow headlamp beam changed, something strange darted in front of the car - the most exquisite  hare. Not some regular rabbit, but a beautiful, (and in my memory) giant hare - elegant and so, so long. But so beautiful in the tungsten glare, that I swerved to avoid it - swerved to avoid metal on flesh...'

EXTERNAL EVALUATOR for KiiCS project: apply by 20 June 2012
Knowledge Incubation in Innovation and Creation for Science is a three-year European Commission-funded project (2012-2014) coordinated by Ecsite, the European network of science centres and museums. It aims build bridges between arts, science and technology by giving evidence of the positive impacts of their interaction for creativity as well as for triggering interest in science. The project will stimulate co-creation processes involving creators and scientists, and nurture youth interest in science in a creative way.
KiiCS offers a financial contribution of a maximum of 30.000€ and if you are interested, you should submit the tender before June 20, 2012. The proposal must be delivered in English and it has to include a brief description of the methodology to be used and analytical framework, a work plan with detailed Schedule and the distribution of budget for the evaluation.
For more information about this position, contact KiiCS: kiics@upf.edu

RNCM MUSIC FOR HEALTH PROGRAMME
AT CENTRAL MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY HOSPITALS
CONCERT SERIES


AMOUR
OK, so I’ve not seen this film and its just been awarded the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, but it looks relevant to our Arts/Health in that it deals with aging, music and stoke in one fell-swoop.  Michael Haneke has made some interesting films in the past and this looks like something very beautiful indeed, dealing with emotions but without cloying sentimentalism. You can find more by clicking on the link below and here’s the official trailer with English subtitles.

‘Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva give breathtaking performances as Georges and Anne, retired music teachers in their 80s, living in a handsomely furnished, book-lined Paris apartment with a baby grand piano. They are happy, affectionate, loving; active and content. We see them attending the performance by one of Anne's former pupils, and are delighted with his success. But one day, Anne suffers the first of a series of strokes which paralyse one arm, making playing the piano impossible, accompanied by progressive dementia...’
CALL FOR ARTISTS AND SOCIAL SCIENTISTS
‘...using your own words and methodologies, calling into question both the vocabulary and content of the research that was requested and making divergent, dissonant and improbable proposals.’

What an invitation!!





The international call is open for artists and social scientists to collaborate with the following seven organisations located in the Basque Country (Spain) as part of the 2012 edition of Improbable Connections: Artepan (artisanal bakery and pastry maker), EDE Fundazioa (social intervention), Eraikune (construction cluster in Euskadi), Grupo Uvesco (supermarkets), Oiz egin (rural development platform), Orbea (design and manufacture of bicycles) and Silam (Products and solutions based on silicone elastomer).
Deadline: 9am on 25 June 2012. 
Collaboration period: September 2012 - June 2013. 
Payment: 12,000 euros + VAT (including travel and accommodation).

Thank you as ever...C.P

Monday, May 21, 2012

Fitness Motivation

By Stephanie of Infinite Life Fitness

Staying motivated to achieve your health and fitness goals can sometime be very hard to do!

You have to find something that will motivate you to keep pushing to achieve your goals. Whether it is a treat…a shopping spree at the mall…a trip someplace…or quotes that you look at…you should have something as motivation to get your workout done or to eat healthy that day. These kinds of visual aids have been found to be very influential for people when they are not feeling up to completing their goals. Sometimes these visual aids give you that extra push that you need to keep you dedicated and motivated to obtain your goals. Not just health and fitness goals, but they can be very influential and helpful with your personal life goals as well!

Today I would like to share some quotes that you may find useful to help YOU with your health and fitness goals. There are many different useful websites that you can use to find other helpful motivational tools. But, I found a few that I have recommended to peers and they seem to like these best.







  • “So many people spend their health gaining wealth, and then have to spend their wealth to regain their health.” ~ A.J.Materi
  • “If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.” ~ Hippocrates
  • “A man’s health can be judged by which he takes two at a time – pills or stairs.” ~ Joan Welsh
  • “Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.” ~ Edward Stanley
  • “As for butter versus margarine, I trust cows more than chemists.” ~ Joan Gussow
  • “Our food should be our medicine and our medicine should be our food.” ~ Hippocrates
  • Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live. – JimRohn
  • Time and health are two precious assets that we don’t recognize and appreciate until they have been depleted. - Denis Waitley
  • Money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed. Health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied. - Charles Caleb Colton
  • Physical fitness can neither be achieved by wishful thinking nor outright purchase. – Joseph Pilates
  • To feel “fit as a fiddle,” you must tone down your middle. – Anonymous
  • Take care of your body, then the rest will automatically become stronger. – Chuang Tzu
  • Movement is a medicine for creating change in a person’s physical, emotional, and mental states. – Carol Welch


I hope that you are able to find some of these helpful if not useful! Remember, half of the battle is mental! If you can stay mentally strong and dedicated, this will make achieving your goals that much easier. Dig deep and work hard this week!

Please feel free to check out my personal blog at infinitelifefitness.com

Oldies, But Goodies

1. Black Skin and Sunscreen
2. Chlorine and Summer Hair
3. Hair and Sun Damage
4. Mixology || Homemade Natural Deodorant

Rice consumption and health

Carbohydrate-rich foods lead to the formation of blood sugars after digestion (e.g., glucose, fructose), which are then used by the liver to synthesize liver glycogen. Liver glycogen is essentially liver-stored sugar, which is in turn used to meet the glucose needs of the human brain – about 5 g/h for the average person.

(Source: Wikipedia)

When one thinks of the carbohydrate content of foods, there are two measures that often come to mind: the glycemic index and the glycemic load. Of these two, the first, the glycemic index, tends to get a lot more attention. Some would argue that the glycemic load is a lot more important, and that rice, as consumed in Asia, may provide a good illustration of that importance.

A 100-g portion of cooked rice will typically deliver 28 g of carbohydrates, with zero fiber, and 3 g of protein. By comparison, a 100-g portion of white Italian bread will contain 54 g of carbohydrates, with 4 g of fiber, and 10 g of protein – the latter in the form of gluten. A 100-g portion of baked white potato will have 21 g of carbohydrates, with 2 g of fiber, and 2 g of protein.

As you can see above, the amount of carbohydrate per gram in white rice is about half that of white bread. One of the reasons is that the water content in rice, as usually consumed, is comparable to that in fruits. Not surprisingly, rice’s glycemic load is 15 (medium), which is half the glycemic load of 30 (high) of white Italian bread. These refer to 100-g portions. The glycemic load of 100 g of baked white potato is 10 (low).

The glycemic load of a portion of food allows for the estimation of how much that portion of food raises a person's blood glucose level; with one unit of glycemic load being equivalent to the blood glucose effect of consumption of one gram of glucose.

Two common denominators between hunter-gatherer groups that consume a lot of carbohydrates and Asian populations that also consume a lot of carbohydrates are that: (a) their carbohydrate consumption apparently has no negative health effects; and (b) they consume carbohydrates from relatively low glycemic load sources.

The carbohydrate-rich foods consumed by hunter-gatherers are predominantly fruits and starchy tubers. For various Asian populations, it is predominantly white rice. As noted above, the water content of white rice, as usually consumed by Asian populations, is comparable to that of fruits. It also happens to be similar to that of cooked starchy tubers.

An analysis of the China Study II dataset, previously discussed here, suggests that widespread replacement of rice with wheat flour may have been a major source of problems in China during the 1980s and beyond ().

Even though rice is an industrialized seed-based food, the difference between its glycemic load and those of most industrialized carbohydrate-rich foods is large (). This applies to rice as usually consumed – as a vehicle for moisture or sauces that would otherwise remain on the plate. White rice combines this utilitarian purpose with a very low anti-nutrient content.

It is often said that white rice’s nutrient content is very low, but this problem can be easily overcome – a topic for the next post.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

EXCLUSIVE: FREE PUBLIC LECTURE with Richard Cork - David Beckham - Sex and Politics - Competitions, Films and New Arts/Health Tender in Cumbria...

A NOBLE ACT OF DEFIANCE
What a speedy couple of weeks: Richards show is down, the Royal Northern College of Music have had the most excellent two day conference on Music and Health, at which I was privileged to share the manifesto.  It was a conference full of passion and possibility and I am thrilled to have hooked up with Musique et Sante once more - exemplars, who alongside Holly and her colleagues, really work out the synergies between notions of music therapy and music and health, and for me, the political power of music for the individual and society. Brilliant and inspiring. Thank you.


Thinking no doubt, about the Olympic Flame and its progression through our bunting filled cities and villages, I dreamt last night of David Beckham, proudly pounding the pavements, torch held high in honour of Queen and country. Only, as in all good dreams, he shouts ‘flame on’ and takes off into the night sky, (St Beckham of Trafford in ascension) to fall to the earth seconds later, like some tousled Icarus - some spluttering spitfire, shot down and impotent. I rush over to him, only to find it's not his coiffured broken body, but that of humiliated and impoverished street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi who self-immolated in Tunisia and kick started what we now call the Arab spring.


And with my increasingly inflamed feelings of patriotic positiveness to the Jubilee and Olympics, I’m thrilled to note that the once vilified athlete, John Carlos (who alongside his fellow American Tommie Smith, so splendidly drew global attention to inequalities in the US by bowing their heads and raising their black-gloved hands in salute on the winners podium in the ‘68 Olympics) is in Liverpool on the 26th May at 6:00 at FACT, in conversation. 
(details here: liverpool@picturehouses.co.uk )


He comments, "Coming to the UK on the eve of the Olympics is a very exciting opportunity for me to talk with the new generation about why we did what we did back in 1968. When Tommie Smith and I raised our fists on that medal platform at the Olympics, we knew that we would catch hell but we didn't care. We didn't care because we wanted the coming generations to live and breathe as full citizens with equal rights. I was just concerned with right and wrong. We went out there for humanity. We are here 43 years later because the fight is still to be won." 

To make a very unsubtle segue between Carlos and the potency of music, here’s a beautiful piece of music by Marvin Gaye that needs no introduction: loaded, potent and sublime:  What’s Going On?


Building further tenuous connections between 1968, and current olympic-sized spending in a time of austerity and inequality - step forward French philosopher Alain Badiou who in his new book, Polemics makes interesting connections between sex, love and politics. Here’s a quote from an article in Saturday’s Guardian -

He defines his "real politics" in opposition to what he calls "parliamentary cretinism". His politics starts with subjective experience, involves a truth procedure and ends, fingers crossed, in a communist society. Why? "It's necessary to invent a politics that is not identical with power. Real politics is to engage to resolve problems within a collective with enthusiasm. It's not simply to delegate problems to the professionals. Love is like politics in that it's not a professional affair. There are no professionals in love, and none in real politics." 


...and finally, (before we get to the opportunities and events) in the presentation of my paper,  A Brightly Coloured Bell-Jar, I’d discussed the role of psychiatry, in the demonisation of people who are gay, reducing people to morbidity and pathological disfunction in secular society.  Well the psychiatrist Dr Robert Spitzer, (and architect of modern classification of mental disorders) the name behind research that posited that gay people could successfully become straight if they were motivated to do so: has retracted his long-held claim. More than that, he has apologised. I quote: "I believe I owe the gay community an apology...I also apologise to any gay person who wasted time and energy undergoing some form of reparative therapy because they believed that I had proven that reparative therapy works."

OK...back to business.

FREE PUBLIC LECTURE
I am thrilled to announce that Dr Langley Brown has been appointed as Research Associate and will be working with me on new research in Arts and Health. One of Langley’s first coups has been to secure a free public lecture by acclaimed art critic Richard Cork...read on...



Arts for Health presents:
The Healing Presence of Art
A History of Western Art in Hospitals
An illustrated lecture by acclaimed art critic and author
Richard Cork
on his new book of the above title, followed by a discussion
6.30 pm, Wednesday 13th June 2012
Lecture Theatre LT3, Geoffrey Manton Building,
All Saints Campus, Oxford Road, 
Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, M15
The event is free, but booking strictly in advance:  langley.brown@mmu.ac.uk

To celebrate the first year of the Arts for Health Archive, and to help place contemporary arts and health practice within a long-standing yet little-studied tradition, Arts for Health has invited Richard Cork to talk about his new and beautifully illustrated book on the history of western art in hospitals. His lecture will be of interest to anyone concerned with the arts, the human environment, and wellbeing.

Between birth and death, many of life's most critical moments occur in hospital, and they deserve to take place in surroundings that match their significance. In this spirit, from the early Renaissance through to the modern period, artists have made immensely powerful work in hospitals across the western world, enhancing the environments where patients and medical staff strive towards better health.

Distinguished art historian Richard Cork became fascinated by the extraordinary richness of art produced in hospitals, encompassing work by many of the great masters - Piero della Francesca, Rogier van der Weyden, El Greco, William Hogarth, Jacques-Louis David, Vincent van Gogh, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Fernand Leger, Marc Chagall and Naum Gabo. Cork's brilliant survey discovers the astonishing variety of images found in medical settings, ranging from dramatic confrontations with suffering (Matthias Grunewald at Isenheim) to the most sublime celebrations of heavenly ecstasy (Giovanni Battista Tiepolo in Venice). In the process, he reveals art's prodigious ability to humanize our hospitals, alleviate their clinical bleakness and leave a profound, lasting impression on patients, staff and visitors.

Richard Cork is an award-winning art critic, historian, broadcaster and curator. Formerly Art Critic of The Evening Standard and Chief Art Critic of The Times, he now writes for The Financial Times and broadcasts regularly on BBC radio and TV. He was Slade Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge University in 1989-90, and Henry Moore Senior Fellow at the Courtauld Institute, 1992-5. He has acted as a judge for the Turner Prize and curated major exhibitions at Tate, the Hayward Gallery, the Barbican Art Gallery, the Royal Academy and other European venues.

Cork’s many books include a ground-breaking study of Vorticism, awarded the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1977; Art Beyond the Gallery, winner of the Banister Fletcher Award in 1986; a major monograph on David Bomberg, 1987; A Bitter Truth: Avant-Garde Art and the Great War, winner of the Art Fund Award in 1995; Jacob Epstein, 1999; four acclaimed volumes of his critical writings on modern art, 2003; Michael Craig-Martin, 2006; and Wild Thing: Epstein, Gaudier-Brzeska, Gill, 2009. He was appointed an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy in 2011.

"A comprehensive and magisterial monograph... Cork brilliantly conveys the extent to which hospitals provided a public arena for the display of art, long before the existence of museums."—Charles Saumarez Smith, RA Magazine

"There have been many studies linking aspects of art and illness but Richard Cork’s scholarly and elegant book is the first to show just how closely the two have always been intertwined and just how various have been the responses."—Michael Prodger, Literary Review

"Cork's prodigiously researched book documents how art in hospitals developed and provides a solid foundation for its future role."—Colin Martin, World Health Design


OUTSIDE: IN
Pallant House Gallery presents the launch of Outside In: 2012, a unique open-entry arts prize for Outsider and marginalised artists. Submissions remain open until 20 July 2012. Selected works will be showcased in a major exhibition at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, West Sussex from 27 Oct 2012 – 3 Feb 2013. http://pallant.org.uk/news/launch-of-outside-in-2012

LA COLIFATA (gracias D.P)

Película documental dirigida por Carlos Larrondo. Producida por Bausan Films y Filmanova Invest. LT22, Radio La Colifata es una radio hecha íntegramente por los internos del Hospital Psiquíatrico J.T. Borda de Buenos Aires. Se graba y se emite desde los jardines del Hospital; se escucha en todo el mundo. Una radio que cuestiona el limite entre locura y razón. Una radio que rompe el muro que separa cuerdos de locos Se da la palabra a quienes la han tenido negada por mucho tiempo: los locos, que, además, pueden mostrarnos todas esas cosas que nosotros los cuerdos, no somos capaces de ver.

MEDICINE BOX: 
HAFSAH NAIB at ALDER HEY
Here is an 8 minute short film, shot on location at Alder Hey Children's Hospital by long-time Arts for Health collaborator, Hafsah Naib and which features patients performing ideas about medicines of the future. The participatory and engagement technique used to generate child-led authentic performance is based upon an artistic approach that she has been developing for several years and which has been the subject of collaborative and academic research presented at art and education conferences in Japan, Austrailia and more recently Hungary.


ARTS and HEALTH TENDER: CUMBRIA
Copeland Borough Council are seeking expressions of interest from organizations or groups who have an interest in tendering to continue delivering the Pathways to Art project and who can fulfill the following criteria:
  • The aims and objectives of the organisation must reflect those of Pathways to Art.
  • There must be a legal framework and constitution in place which will allow applications to various grant/funding bodies.
  • Demonstrable experience of successful funding applications.
  • Members of staff working on the project must have demonstrable skills in project management in the arts and delivering arts workshops with clients who have mental and/or physical health problems.
Project Summary
The Pathways to Art project has been successfully operating in West Cumbria since 2007, although in the last year it has been running in Copeland Borough only due to budget constraints. The changing economic climate means it is no longer viable for the project to continue operating within the Local Authority, however Copeland Borough Council recognise the benefits of the project to its residents and to that end wish to see it continue, either as a project of an existing organisation or by a group who are interested in establishing the project as a Social Enterprise in its own right.  In order to assist this, the council is offering a one- off grant of £15,265, which is mainly, matched funding for further grant applications.

How to Apply
Through an expression of interest which outlines:
How you meet the criteria defined above, including CV's of any staff working on the project, both initial planning/fundraising and workshop delivery.
Why you are interested in this opportunity.
Initial ideas for running the project in the first instance and how you might develop it over 3 years, bearing in mind the following:

Contract NWCE-8U5MWK
Title Project 611: Pathways to Art
The tender will go live today ( 16 May 2012) at 14.00pm on The Chest ( www.the-chest.org.uk) organisations or groups wishing to tender will need to register on The Chest which is free. All relevant guidance and documents are on The Chest and expressions of interest should be submitted through The Chest no later than 17.00pm on Friday 8 June 2012.


BECOMING A HEALTHY MUSEUM CONFERENCE
The UK Medical Collections Group
Thackray Museum, Beckett Street, Leeds, LS9 7LN
This inspiring and practical one-day conference will bring you up to date with new structures and priorities in the health sector, and will explore how heritage organisations can contribute to government agendas around all aspects of health.  Whether you are already involved with the UK Medical Collections Group, or if you are a curator or educator who is keen to join the debate about what heritage can offer to health, we hope that you can join us on 29th May.  You will hear from speakers from the heath sector, as well as museum and arts professionals who have worked towards health agendas. You will also have the chance to explore how you can link your work to health outcomes. We aim to bring together existing practice and new information to develop a long-term vision of how museums can contribute to health outcomes.

Tuesday 29th May, 201210am-4pm
For enquiries or to make a booking, please email: marketing@thackraymuseum.org

Thank you as ever...C.P.