Healing Arts is a global campaign by the Jameel Arts & Health Lab in collaboration with the World Health Organization
Healing Arts is a global campaign by the Jameel Arts & Health Lab in collaboration with the World Health Organization
Monday, 15 June 2026, 10:30- 16:00 Suttie Centre for Teaching and Learning in Healthcare, Aberdeen, AB25 2ZN
You are warmly invited to join us in Aberdeen for the launch of Healing Arts Scotland, for a day celebrating Healing Arts featuring panel discussions, Q&As, keynote speakers, spotlight speakers, workshops and creative wellbeing activities connected to the themes of Healing Arts Scotland 2026.
Everyone is welcome to join us for a day of inspiration, connection and creativity, exploring how the arts can support health and wellbeing for individuals and communities in the North East and across Scotland.
The Aberdeen Day of Healing Arts Scotland is programmed and supported by: Grampian Hospitals Art Trust, Citymoves Dance Agency SCIO, Jameel Arts & Health Lab, World Health Organisation, Creative Scotland, The Scottish Government, and Public Health Scotland
For more information about planning your journey to the Suttie Centre: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/suttie-centre/getting-here/
Ticket fees for this event have been kept low to remove access barriers; all proceeds from ticket sales will go directly toward catering costs on the day of the event.
Yazmany Arboleda is a Colombian-American artist, architect, and civic designer whose work treats art as a collective action—something people do together to shape belonging, dignity, and public life. He is New York City’s inaugural People’s Artist at the Civic Engagement Commission and Founder and Artistic Director of The People’s Creative Institute, a civic art studio that transforms everyday public spaces into sites of storytelling, healing, and democratic participation. He also serves as Senior Artistic Advisor for the Community Arts Network and teaches futures-oriented design at Cornell University.
Dr. Nisha Sajnani is Professor of Creative Arts Therapies at New York University and founding co-director of the Jameel Arts & Health Lab, established in collaboration with the World Health Organization. Bridging research, practice, and policy on the health value of the arts across the life course, she leads an international research network, co-leads a landmark Lancet collection on arts and health, and advances WHO policy, including a recent brief on the role of the arts in addressing the health impacts of climate change. She is also on faculty with the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma, where she leads on the role of the arts in humanitarian care.
Laura joined NHS Grampian as Chief Executive in September 2025. With over 20 years’ experience in the NHS, Laura is a highly regarded leader with a track record of delivering at Board-level. Her experience ranges from some of England’s and Europe’s largest acute teaching hospitals to smaller, yet crucial, rural, remote and island Boards in both England and Scotland which are central to regional integrated care and sustainable services. Laura was Chief Executive at NHS Orkney between 2023-2025. During this time Laura championed improvements spanning quality and safety, patient and staff experience, digital and financial as well as operational performance. She has also been at the forefront of the national reform and renewal agenda, which sets out how we will shape the future of our population’s health and care in Scotland, leading some of the vital work which was published by Scottish Government. As a visible, compassionate leader who puts people first, Laura attributes her success in improving patient and staff experience to the openness and transparency which she brings to communications, partnership working and collaboration.
Tejesh Mistry is Chief Executive of Voluntary Health Scotland (VHS), passionate about creating equity within society and an experienced senior leader within the charity sector, having developed and led national services that provide support to marginalised communities. His career has focused on utilising the power of nature, social connection, and physical activity, with roles at Cycling UK, Royal Voluntary Service, and Venture Trust. At Cycling UK and the Royal Voluntary Service, he led behaviour change programmes to reduce loneliness and improve physical and mental wellbeing. He served as Director of External Affairs at Venture Trust for four years before taking on an interim director role at Voluntary Action South Lanarkshire. He has served as a Board Member of sportscotland since 2022 and is Vice Chair of its People Committee.
Maggie Hepburn has been Chief Executive at ACVO since 2019. She is a passionate supporter of the third sector and believes strongly in the potential that exists in everyone, having seen it in action through out her working life. Maggie works with the ACVO team and Board to continue to promote the voice and work of the third sector in Aberdeen.
Chris Fremantle is a researcher and producer at Gray's School of Art, Robert Gordon University, where he is a Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer on the Contemporary Art Practice programme. His work spans art, ecology, and health, and he is the founder of ecoartscotland, a platform for research and practice. His research focuses on the role of artists in public life, through practice-led work in environment and health, with co-creativity, improvisation and adaptation as key themes. He is a Fellow of the RSA and co-edited the anthology Ecoart in Action: Activities, Case Studies, and Provocations for Classrooms and Communities (New Village Press, 2022).
Jill Sonke, PhD, is a US Cultural Policy Fellow with Stanford University, Co-director of the EpiArts Lab, a National Endowment for the Arts Research Lab in partnership with University College London, and Director of Research Initiatives and a Research Professor in the Center for Arts in Medicine at the University of Florida (UF). She is an artist, cultural strategist and mixed-methods researcher, and is the recipient of over 350 grants and awards for her programs and research at the intersection of the arts and health.
Larissa W. Trinder serves as Assistant Vice President for Arts in Medicine at New York City Health + Hospitals, where she leads one of the most ambitious arts-in-healthcare initiatives in the country. She oversees the stewardship, exhibition strategy, conservation, maintenance, acquisition, and curation of the health system’s collection of more than 7,500 works of art—the largest non-museum collection in New York City—with many pieces dating back to the 1930s. Installed throughout the system’s facilities, the collection advances evidence-based design principles that support patient experience, enhance trust, and improve workplace environments for staff.
