London Creative Health City: Building It Together

In November 2023, we gathered over three hundred Londoners in person and online, to explore how the health, social care and cultural sectors can work together to tackle health inequalities across London. Justine Simons OBE, Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries and Professor Kevin Fenton, the Mayor’s advisor for public health, highlighted the fundamental value of culture and creativity to people's health and wellbeing.

Together, attendees (which included artists, creative practitioners, GPs, public health, link workers and many more) laid the groundwork to fuel the Creative Health movement in London, sparking ideas and collaborations, building resilience and exchanging best practice. Find out more about our work in this area on our dedicated website pages, and join London Arts and Health’s newsletter for sector-related news.

Created over the course of the Unconference, this podcast episode celebrates the Londoners working at the intersection of creative health what they think about London as Creative Health  City. What needs to happen to make it a reality and what difference it would make to their work. The conversations highlight both the opportunities and challenges in making the ambition a reality, offering perspectives from different communities, practices and artforms.

The following poem was written by all attendants in the event and edited by Arji Manuelpillai, the host and lead facilitator for the Unconference:

Some Days Are Special Days

Today was a day for praise and love, joy and rest
to share and learn, grow and connect.

Today was a day to let the words flow free
A day to find some time to listen.

Today was for helping London
find a way to heal, to change.

For realising we are not alone,
Together our strength is staggering.

Today was a day for transformation
through conversation.

Old ways of seeing new approaches,
new ways of growing, of implementing

Defining the goal, chasing the goal,
reaching for the goal, rebuilding the goal.

Today was a day for remembering
It’s ok to play, work isn’t always work.

I met an old boyfriend today,
hadn’t seen him in ages, he looked so good.

Today was for being heard, thinking and feeling,
praising, inspiring, expressing our ideas

listening, noticing, digesting, caring
expanding, inspiring and thinking,

did I mention thinking?
critical thinking, analytical thinking,

thinking about how I love
the way you move from company to company

but we basically do the same thing.
We fight the good fight.

Today was there to help us remember 
the why before committing to the how.

It was a day for cigs and booze
For spilling tea on a random man.

A day for dreaming and flying
For dreaming of flying, for flying a dream

That we can, some day,
Bun down Babylon.

Today was inspiring and moving
strange and weird

And u sat on my brand new glasses
But that was ok.

Because today was not about trying to be too much,
But just being a being that knows.

If we trust in our imagination
If we believe in our shared power

We can and we will build a city
Full of possibilities.

A city where creativity
paves a healthier London of the future.

Today was just a day
It’s tomorrow where the change begins.