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On Friday, April 29th, HARC facilitated a visioning exercise for the first in-person gathering of the Advisory Group for the Elder Wellness Project, an initiative focused on strengthening mental wellness and suicide prevention for Elders in the northern Interior. The Elder Wellness Project is funded by a 5-year $1.5M grant received in 2019 by Carrier Sekani Family Services (CSFS) and UNBC. HARC Research Director, Dr Sarah de Leeuw represents UNBC …

HARC is excited and proud to be partnering with The National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health to support health care professionals to address anti-Indigenous racism, practice in anti-oppressive ways, and foster cultural humility. The Hearts-based Education and Anticolonial Learning (HEAL) project will promote cultural safety and recognize Indigenous knowledge and anti-colonial approaches in health service provision. Check out the News Release here: https://www.canada.ca/en/indigenous-services-canada/news/2022/07/university-of-northern-british-columbia-institutes-working-to-increase-safety-and-respect-for-indigenous-peoples-in-canadas-health-systems.html  “We need to remember that achieving optimal …

HARC contributor, Darian Goldin Stahl, presented at the Canadian Association of Health Humanities Conference, Creating Space 11, held in April 2021. The presentation covered Darian’s Research Creation Dissertation titled Book as Body: The Meaning-Making of Artists’ Books in the Health Humanities.  Please click on the video below to watch Darion’s full presentation. Amazing work, Darian!

We at the HARC believe in the utilization of arts-based approaches to learning, as well as marrying Traditional and Western knowledges where appropriate. Below you can find copies of various teaching and learning resources generated by our HARC team. For more information on any of these documents or, to request facilitation by our team of any of these lesson plans, please contact Marion Erickson at marion.erickson@unbc.ca or Laura McNab-Coombs at …

By May Farrales What can drawing and doodling together do?  For a team of researchers, practitioners and community organizations who are working together in the Environmental, Community and Heath Observatory Network (ECHO), drawing together proved to be a challenging yet worthwhile effort. In spring of 2019, members of the ECHO Network took part in a series of comic jam sessions. Inspired by how health and humanities scholars, artists, and practitioners …

This September marked the culmination of two tremendous thesis projects by HARC researchers Katriona Auerbach and Melissa Johnson.  We are thrilled to now have Katriona onboard as a HARC Research Associate where she will continue working with the Northern Medical Program to provide future physicians with immersive experiences in Indigenous communities and on the land, and we wish Melissa every success as she begins her PhD on rhetorically pathologized bodies …

This spring, the Health Arts Research Centre staff was involved in a Northern Medical Program student-led project entitled Brains on Canvas. This project was the result of UBC’s FLEX curriculum, a mandatory research component of the Medical Undergraduate program for students in years 1, 2, and 4.​ The project team includedfirst-year medical students Daveen Panesar, Deanna Klonarakis, and Nick Broc​her, Dr. Alina Constantin, Assistant Director of Anatomy with the NMP, and Charis Alderfer-Mumma, a board-certified Art Therapist and …

We are very pleased to share the work of Victoria Bass, a student of the Southern Medical Program at UBC. In a true example of the meeting point bewteen art and medicine she has designed a research poster, What’s Happening to Me? Exploring Transformation in Medical Education Through Poetry. An intersection of autoethnography, poetic inquiry and grounded theory, Bass uses graphic means to capture the journey of transformation to becoming a physician. Go Victoria! Victoria Bass is a …

Hoping this finds you enjoying these soft, reflective November days. HARC director Dr. Sarah de Leeuw, and Dr. Margot Greenwood have recently published “Turning a New Page: cultural safety, critical literary interventions, truth and reconciliation and the crisis of child welfare.” Have a read or, better yet, a listen! Turning a New Page_de Leeuw-Greenwood For the audio version (ie cozy listens!), click below:

We have some new goodies to share with you for your reading pleasure by HARC director, Dr. Sarah de Leeuw. Check out these recent publications! Gender, Place and Culture: Critical geographies and geography’s creative re/turn: poetics and practices for new disciplinary space Canadian Geographer: Going unscripted: A call to critically engage storytelling methods and methodologies in geography and the medical-health sciences Where it Hurts: Essays

HARC is honoured to be working with Indigenous healthcare providers to engage in dialogues on creating safer and more inclusive work environments for Indigenous peoples working in healthcare. Read more about this initiative and the creative brainstorming that took place at the BCNU Convention this past spring: https://issuu.com/bcnursesunion/docs/update_jul-aug2017?e=7272743/50953323

Community members of Terrace and the surrounding region were invited to join the Health Arts Research Centre team at the Terrace Art Gallery to share their thoughts and creative expressions on the topic of Indigenous health and wellness, including ideas about ways to welcome and support Indigenous peoples working in health care in northern BC.​ The day was filled with creative energy and conversation resulting in some amazing and powerful art pieces!   

A link to NYU School of Medicine’s medical humanities database, LitMed: Literature Arts Medicine. See for exceptional listings of visual art, literature, and performance arts on illness and healing or to borrow a phrase from the site, “the human condition curated”. http://medhum.med.nyu.edu “The Literature, Arts and Medicine Database (LitMed) is a collection of literature, fine art, visual art and performing art annotations created as a dynamic, comprehensive resource for scholars, …