In May 2022 Dr. Guislain Museum organised at the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea (Wales, UK) a very successful international five-day training event aimed at supporting professionals working in or with the cultural heritage sector in the development of programs using cultural heritage for wellbeing activities.
In 2023 and 2024 Dr. Guislain Museum will organise with several partners a series of international training events in three European cities with a rich textile heritage: Ghent, Leeds and Tilburg. Although each edition will have a specific focus (communities, co-creation and making/makers) the red thread will be arts-based engagements using textile heritage. The participants of the three editions will be connected through the developing of an art engagement using a textile source under the guidance of artist and researcher Claire Wellesley-Smith.
For the first edition of this series, Dr. Guislain Museum will team up with the Red Star Line Museum in Antwerp and Arts & Sciences University College London. Together they’ll deliver the International Spring School Cultural Heritage & Wellbeing: Textile Cities from Monday 5 until Friday 9 June 2023 in Ghent (Belgium).
For five days the participants receive a theoretical underpinning and are going to be guided in developing a wellbeing offering. The participants will encounter a wide range of methods and instruments that already are been used by inspiring cases were cultural heritage is used for the improvement of the wellbeing of communities. Included in the programme is a field trip to Antwerp to visit inspiring community projects delivered by the Red Star Line Museum.
The spring school is to be delivered by a highly experienced team of experts who are leading in different fields connected to heritage, community engagement and wellbeing:
Bart De Nil, expert wellbeing, culture and community engagement, Belgium. Developed training programs and published several books about cultural heritage, health and wellbeing based on this own experience as a practitioner and researcher. Organised and delivered many international training programmes.
Bart Marius, artistic director Dr. Guislain Museum, Belgium
Is leading an internationally renowned museum about mental health that uses its museum grounds as a place of care. Their focus is on creative community engagement in co-operation with neighbourhood health centres.Claire Wellesley-Smith, researcher and artist, United Kingdom.
Nadia Babazia, public engagement Red Star Line Museum, Belgium. Is a social scientist and anthropologist who fills her days with stories of people and migration. These not only form the red tread that runs through the museum but are also the base for participation and diversity. Nadia summarizes her work as: "bringing people together".
Thomas Kador, Lecturer in Creative Health, University College London (UCL) Department of Arts & Sciences , United Kingdom. Is a material culture specialist with research interests in the health and wellbeing potential of (cultural) spaces, collections and their objects. He convenes UCL’s MASc Creative Health programme, which focuses on non-clinical, asset based health interventions.
Organised in a symbolic venue
The Dr. Guislain Museum is housed in the oldest asylum in Belgium, which dates back to 1857, surrounded by a mental health hospital, this museum aims to break down the many prejudices that still define what is ‘mentally ill’ and what is ‘normal’. The Dr. Guislain Museum is, as a museum on psychiatry, a place where past and present meet. The Dr. Guislain Museum is a lieu de mémoire and a laboratory, a museum ‘in psychiatry’ where experiment is key, where issues on metal wellbeing and illness are questioned and the complexity of the human psyche is revealed through testimonies, documents and records, art and photography.
Photo: Karin Borghouts
Leeds and Tilburg
The following editions Cultural Heritage & Wellbeing: Textile Cities will be:
Winter School in Leeds (United Kingdom), in cooperation with Leeds Museums & Galleries and Arts & Sciences University College London, 22 - 26 January 2024. Focus: co-creation.
Spring School in Tilburg (The Netherlands), in cooperation with Erfgoed Tilburg and Arts & Sciences University College London, beginning of June 2024. Focus: making/makers.
Interested? Fill in this form if you are interested to participate in Leeds and/or Tilburg. When the registration opens, we’ll send you an email with all the information and the possibility to register.
Who is this training course for?
Professionals working in cultural heritage organisations (museums, archives, galleries, libraries with special collections).
Practitioners working with heritage in community engagement and creative health.
Students and researchers in the field of creative health, museum studies, etc.
At the end of this training course, you'll be able to develop a resource for a specific target group or context, design wellbeing activities, make a detailed plan of a resource and present the rational of a resource to the group.
Practical information
Location: Dr. Guislain Museum in Ghent (Belgium).
Fee: 500,- EUROS (including VAT). Reduced fee for students: 350,- EUROS (including VAT).
For this you will get lunches, refreshments and snacks during the sessions and breaks, course materials, a return train ticket from Ghent to Antwerp for the field trip on Wednesday 7th June and participation in the social program.
All other expenses are borne by the participants. Attending the social program is not mandatory.
There’s a very large variation of accommodation in Ghent.
Participants are expected to bring their laptop.
Maximum 20 participants.
How to register
Send an email stating your name, position and /or institution to: textilecities@gmail.com
You’ll receive confirmation. If your registration is accepted, you’ll receive an email with more details. The invoice for the registration fee will be send to the participant after the confirmation. Your registration is only final after payment of registration fee.
The participants will receive in advance a briefing document with a detailed schedule of the spring school.
The spring school 2023 is organised by Dr. Guislain Museum in co-operation with Red Star Line Museum and Arts & Science University College London. The program of this training is developed and will be coordinated by Bart De Nil, who’s at the forefront in leading developments in relation to culture-led wellbeing in Flanders, Belgium and internationally.