Performing arts in prison. A health resource

Sala Chizzolini, Via Trieste 17, Brescia 3 March 2025

Conference

9.45 a.m. - 6.00 p.m.

Chizzolini Room

The conference is the result of the Arti per la cura project financed to Carla Bino by the funds of the 5x1000 unicatt and intends to reflect on the contribution of projects that use the performing arts damage to prison contexts, with particular attention to the health outcomes that they can promote in them.

In the first session of the conference, the FRAGILE BONDS project will be presented - a social theater path that has been carried out for over 10 years in the prisons and districts of Verziano and Canton Monbello (BS) - and then deepen the role that theatrical activities currently play in Italian prisons. In particular, the results of the research conducted by Università Cattolica, in collaboration with the prison health directorate, on the impacts of the FRAGILE BONDS project on the well-being perceived by the inmates participating in the theatre workshop will be presented.

In the afternoon, the discussion will open to reflect on the role that participation in artistic experiences can have on the health and well-being of people, suffering from diseases or not. Case studies and scientific reflections on the relationship between the arts and health in a broad sense (understood from a physical/biomedical point of view, but also psychological, social and environmental) will be presented. Finally, the current situation of policies in Italy on social prescription will be illustrated - i.e. the possibility of prescribing and financing participation in social and artistic experiences by the national health service, as is already the case in other countries of the Anglo-Saxon context.