OK'TAVA

        A unique collaboration between academia, leading art and cultural venues, medical professionals, creative arts therapists, artists and UN partners, the special publication on ‘WHO // Arts and Health’ introduces a multimedia project that brings together diverse communities in a conversation delivering real-world healing impact. 

         This publication is a unique collaboration between the Jameel Arts & Health Lab, in collaboration with the WHO, le Musée d’Art et d’Histoire (MAH), OK’TAVA Open Arts, Artgeneve, Addictlab, and the SDG Fablab of the University of Geneva.

        Taking root in UN SDG3 (Good Health & Well-being), the special edition branches out into the vivid universe where urgent public health needs converge and converse with the healing power of the arts. The authors from the UN, academia (EPFL, UNIGE, NYU), leading cultural and art venues, medical centers, as well as artists and health practitioners themselves, cover a wide array of synergies in their essays. These include neurography as a means to connect to our inner speech, overcoming war trauma and isolation through art therapy, the 'identifiable victim effect' as a bridge from the one to the many, harnessing internal talent in a WHO art gallery, finding peace and justice in a real-life/real-time opera, connecting people struggling with neuropathy to everyday life through the language of masterpieces at MAH, and the unique healing potential of arts supported by empirical studies at the Jameel Arts & Health Lab, in collaboration with the WHO, NYU Steinhardt, Community Jameel and Culturunners. The authors debate questions, and lead the reader on the new pathways of exchange and experimentation towards health for all.