The performing, creative, and healing arts are vital for societal and individual wellbeing, health promotion, social cohesion, and positive social change. In South Africa (SA) there is a need to bolster the social impact of the arts; advance arts-for-health and arts-science research; build context-relevant capacity in the therapeutic creative arts, as well as in arts in health and community arts practices. There is also a need for health promotion within the arts: SA artists’ health and wellbeing are seldom considered, marginally researched, and poorly resourced, despite high prevalence of artists’ mental and physical occupational health disorders. While expertise and research exist in isolated specialities, coordinated and integrated translational research across health, arts, and performance is lacking. Driven by the core value, health in the arts for health of the nation, HAPI will synergise, connect, support, and develop transdisciplinary research, applications, and interventions for health promotion in and through the performing and creative arts, delineated by four operational streams:

Core members

Ms. Amelda Brand

Uné Conradie

Dr. Susan de Klerk 

Prof. Mario Nell

Dr. Karolien Perold-Bull

Dr. Bridget Rennie-Salonen (HAPI Lead)

Ms. Cassidy Robinson

Ms. Mariam Salie

Prof. Kathryn Smith

Marlize Swanepoel

Faculty / School / Department / Institution represented

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Department of Music

Department of Visual Arts

Department of Drama

Department of Psychology

Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences

Department of Exercise, Sport, and Lifestyle Medicine

Department of Health Rehabilitation Sciences

Sp(i)eel Arts Therapies Collective