The course provides students with theoretical understanding and practical experience of how the arts, culture and aesthetics can be a resource for health and wellbeing. The course is interdisciplinary and research-based, combining historical and theoretical perspectives from the humanities and social sciences with findings from research in medicine and the health sciences. The course covers several art forms, such as visual art, music, literature, drama, dance and performance art. It also covers different approaches to health with a focus on the existential dimension of health, and several topics related to the arts and aesthetics, such as meaning-making, beauty, interpretation, presence, and empathy.  Throughout the course, students are encouraged to engage in and reflect on their own creative and aesthetic experiences individually and collectively. The course discusses various sources of knowledge about such experiences, such as quantitative measurement, interviews, philosophical approaches, introspection, and embodied knowledge. The course also covers how creative and aesthetic experiences can be facilitated and mediated in different contexts.

The course is offered at the Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences, Lund University, in collaboration with UiT The Arctic University of Norway, within the EUGLOH partnership.