The core idea of the project stems from the potential benefits of the cooperation between HEIs, Health and Social care Institutions and Museums, as a strategic partnership to advance in museum education as well as in museum experience in order to support the design, realization, monitoring and evaluation of art-based activities and actions specifically addressed to people with social care and health problems. The Covid 19 pandemic has brought many health systems to collapse: in addition to illnesses directly caused by the virus, hospitals, physicians, and health centers have to deal with numerous illnesses, including mental diseases, caused by the spread of the virus and the restrictive measures defined by governments (WHO, 2021).
Moreover, the Covid 19 health problem has highlighted some long standing educational issues especially connected to cultural inclusion and the disposal and use of transverse skills that need to be developed in order to take active part in society. Some predictions underline that social marginalisation has increased cultural inequality: already marginalised and vulnerable groups, such as people with disabilities and health problems, will be more affected by physical restrictions and, consequently, have fewer opportunities to enter the labour market (Azevedo et al., 2020) and participate in social life. In 2008, the Foresight Mental Capital and Wellbeing Project defined mental wellbeing as a “dynamic state, in which the individual is able to develop their potential, work productively and creatively, build strong and positive relationships with others, and contribute to their community”. Evidence reviewed within the Foresight project showed wellbeing to be self-perpetuating and inextricably linked to health, to the extent that ‘a high level of wellbeing is associated with positive functioning, which includes creative thinking, productivity, good interpersonal relationships and resilience in the face of adversity, as well as good physical health and life expectancy’.
There is an expanding body of research and evaluation to support the case that the arts have an important contribution to make to health and wellbeing. Arts therapies have been found to alleviate anxiety, depression and stress while increasing resilience and wellbeing. However, the potential contribution of the arts to health and wellbeing has, as yet, been all too little realised. Too often, arts programmes for health are temporary, and provision is uneven across the different european countries. For this to improve, culture change is needed. Universities can play an important role in realizing a collaboration across the systems of health, social care and the arts. The project was designed from the educational and social needs of the partners’ communities. From the partners community prospective, the lack of participation in the social life and the exclusion from the places in which culture is promoted, such as museums and cultural organizations, leads to their worrying exclusion from active citizenship, with direct consequences such as marginalisation and, sometimes, social tensions.
Through the reversed community approach, the Inclusive Memory project tends to stimulate processes of rebuilding troubled communities (“Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets, Kretzmann & McKnight, 1996) through the collaboration of Universities, people working professionally in health and social care as well as of artists and people working in cultural organisations. The project challenges habitual thinking and asks for new collaborations to be formed across conventional boundaries.