Andrea Charise, BASc, MA, PhD, University of Toronto Scarborough

Thursday 18 April 2024

Andrea Charise, PhD, is Associate Professor and Associate Chair-Research in the Department of Health and Society at the University of Toronto Scarborough, Canada. She is the author or editor of two recent academic books, including the Routledge Companion to Health Humanities (2020) and The Aesthetics of Senescence (SUNY Press). Her research and teaching focuses on the connections between arts, health, and community wellness. Beyond academia, Andrea is a studio-based ceramics artist and an end-of-life doula.

This talk will present an historically informed, theoretically-driven, praxis-guided framework for a renewed vision of social wellness. This vision takes community arts engagement as both a vehicle for and site of social wellness. Conspicuously absent from contemporary definitions and usage is any mention of the aesthetic realm which, following philosophers like Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, Dr Charise takes as a central human capability. The talk will describe the FLOURISH Collective (www.flourishcollective.ca), an emergent community-based research initiative based in Toronto, comprised of community arts-wellness projects that explore the radical possibilities of 1) an arts-led reframing of social determinants of health, specifically toward 2) community-strengthening practices that underscore the values—and value—of arts and humanities-centred work. The talk will conclude with concrete recommendations for advancing arts-led social wellness initiatives involving academic and community partners.