The Centre Scientifique de Monaco and the Aleksandr Savchuk Foundation, which raises funds for scientific research as well as backing educational and sport-based initiatives for cancer sufferers, have joined forces with the International Art & Science Institute to host a fascinating event that will explore the benefits that art and art therapy can have on patients.
The ‘Repair the World with Art’ conference, which will take place on Thursday 1st February between 10am and 7pm at the Centre Scientifique de Monaco (CSM), will cover an array of projects happening in Monaco and the south of France that are at “the crossroads of contemporary art, art therapy and medical research”.
Personalities from the worlds of art and science are due to speak at the event, such as Professor Florence Askenazy of the Université Côte d’Azur, who is also a children’s psychiatrist at the CHU de Nice and the city’s Hôpital Pédiatrique Universitaire Lenval. Professor Askenazy will deliver a talk on the “benefits of art therapy in working with the psychological trauma of children and adolescents”.
Taisiya Savchuk-Polishchuk, the president of the Aleksandr Savchuk Foundation, will also be speaking about art therapy and “art-care actions” as well as the ‘Going Towards the Light’ book project that the foundation has been developing, and artist Olga Kisseleva will hold a presentation on “art, science and interdisciplinary practices of the stage space”.
“We wish to promote unique reflections, initiated as much by the arts and aesthetics as by medicine or neuroscience, in order to identify the specificities of art as a tool for repairing the world,” says Savchuk-Polishchuk of the unique event. “The artistic dimension of science as well as the contribution that an aesthetic approach to scientific data can make will also be addressed.”
“Art is recognised as a very beneficial means of treating patients”
Doctor Vincent Picco, the head of the paediatric cancer research team at the CSM, says, “Art is recognised as a very beneficial means of treating patients, with proven effects on reducing cancer, the taking of medications and the length of hospital stays as well as the improvement of the well-being of the person treated independently of the care protocols. This approach is one of the extensions of our research action at the CSM, which aims to treat, but also to improve the conditions of therapeutic care for people undergoing treatment.”
A cocktail reception will follow the talks.
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Photo source: Tetiana Shyshkina, Unsplash