Artistry in Healthcare
The ARTS | LAB passion is to ensure that a future of art and health in unison arrives sooner. Our mission is to advance the understanding of creativity as health—the quiet foundation beneath individual and collective wellbeing.
Since 2012, this unique collaboration has led the way in a new creative field: artistry in healthcare. Over the years, generations of Boston University student artists have answered the call to go beyond the isolation of studios and practice rooms. They meet the complexities of healthcare as artists, guided by curiosity—present and open to rediscovering artistic skill and creative practice anew.
The result is creative research at its best—paving new avenues for artists in a culture of health, while creative innovation supports the mission of BU’s teaching affiliate, Boston Medical Center.
Many years later I still remember the feeling of being at Boston Medical Center and experiencing that vibrant life quality–that awake-ness; that realness of artistry close to life.
–Corianna Moffatt (CFA’10,’19), Theatre Education alum and a 2018 ARTS | LAB Fellow
ABOUT ARTS | LAB
Outreach is often the initial impulse for artists entering healthcare. Yet, ARTS | LAB is an invitation to go past the outreach mindset. Our decade of experience suggests that while outreach may facilitate encounter, it does not hold space for true transformation. Changing location does not imply actual change; committed awareness and presence open the gateway to a new field of understanding.
Our approach is relational rather than performative–it does not turn patients into audiences, the hospital into a stage, or artists into physicians. Artistry in healthcare defines the possibility of creatively relating to the actual needs emerging from clinical reality. In that way, we build productive relationships with healthcare without compromising the artistic integrity of new generations of artists.
Playing at BMC public spaces is my favorite experience. Mainly because of ARTS | LAB approach to creating music that directly relates to space. It was very insightful, I learned a lot […] Having a space where I could take time and risks helped me develop and grow my expressiveness. I could not have done that exploration in the context and pressure of studio training.
–Anna Harris (CFA’22), Violin Performance alum
PROJECTS
ARTS | LAB enjoys the responsibility of imagining new potentials for artistry in a fast-paced, changing society. Each one of our projects is a thoughtful response to a concrete need emerging from clinical reality – from addressing noise on a surgical unit to enlivening isolation in chemotherapy sessions.
Relevance remains our primary artistic agenda. And in turn, artistry gains a rare clarity and maturity–it leaves behind the noise of needing to prove or impress.
Amidst hospital turmoil, artistry becomes a living standard. By means of presence, without effort, it communicates qualities of stillness, elegance, flow, beauty, trust, joy… It actualizes environments suitable for care and recovery–a felt remembrance that transformation is natural; that things work out. Healthcare itself aspires to these qualities, and artists long to embody them beyond the superficial display of skill.
Our curated arts/health projects range from general art interventions in public hospital spaces (Arts Life Series), to innovative creative research programs facilitating individualized patient-artist collaborations—remote live music connections for ICU patients, art-making experiences for those waiting in hospital, and photography as a pathway to restored worthiness in the daily lives of sickle cell patients.
Did you ever imagine your artistry going that far? We do.
ARTS | LAB gave me the opportunity to experience the impact of creativity and art in real time. It is very tangible and direct because you work creatively in a concrete environment. That is very unique, and it taught me a lot about what creative practice actually is.
–Dzidzor Azaglo (STH’25), Performance Art alum and a 2019 ARTS | LAB Fellow
The opportunity to connect with community was so wonderful – the interactions with BMC patients; to see that what we do as artists has an impact on others. We are very lonely most of the time, and we forget how to engage. ARTS | LAB was my training to connect with others in a genuine and natural way.
–Inês Andrade (CFA’18), Piano Performance alum and a 2020 ARTS | LAB Fellow
Boston Medical Center
There is no place quite like the BU Med Campus. It is more than a hospital; the schools of
Medicine,
Public Health and
Dental Medicine, and nearby shelters. It is a vibrant community of individuals––a network of support and care that touches the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in need each year.
Boston Medical Center (BMC) is Boston’s largest provider of world-class health care accessible to all, regardless of status or ability to pay. With an average of 1,000,000 patient visits per year, BMC offers a comprehensive range of care in more than 70 specialties and subspecialties of medicine and surgery.
BMC’s vision is to make Boston the healthiest urban population in the world. This audacious goal sets the tone for their growth and a successful future, and drives their culture, activities, and strategy.
As the principal teaching affiliate of Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, BMC is devoted to training future generations of health care professionals. BMC operates 67 residency training programs with 679 resident and fellowship positions. As an award-winning health equity leader, BMC’s diverse clinicians and staff interrogate racial disparities in care and partner with the community to dismantle systemic inequities. Throughout the hospital, BMC leverages its strengths in clinical care, research, and community partnerships to address longstanding injustices and eliminate barriers to health, as well as focus its research programs on the inclusion of communities typically not included in medical research.
BMC is proud to host patients and staff from all over the world and from diverse communities in the Boston area. Almost 30 percent of patients speak a primary language other than English, and so BMC offers all their medical care and services in over 160 languages, including Spanish, Haitian Creole, Cape Verdean Creole, and more.
ARTIST LEADERSHIP
Moisès
Founding Director
BU profile
The only obstacle that stops music [art] from being care is the materialistic misfortune of consuming instead of experiencing—a narrow me-plan that only goes to music to secure individual gain. Ignoring space, ignoring others and their reality, perpetuates music as showmanship, struggle, self-consciousness, and deception. That is music ignoring its intrinsic health.
–MOISÈS, Music as Care: Artistry in the Hospital Environment, Routledge, 2021
Kriti Singh
Program Assistant
artslab@bu.edu
Patricio Flores
Principal Artist
pflorese@bu.edu
Jieun Lim
Art Education
jlim0216@bu.edu
GETTING TO THE MEDICAL CAMPUS
The BU BUS is a free shuttle offered by the University that operates on a regular basis during the school year.
You can also check the MBTA website for customized route information.
Parking: There is metered parking around BMC.
Meeting Point: The 710 Albany Street BUS stop. The shuttles run on a loop, so you will return to the same stop to take the BUS back to the main campus.
