Spring School Cultural Heritage & Wellbeing 2025

From the 16th to the 20th of June 2025 TOON will team up with UCL Arts and Sciences, UCL Museums and the National Archives Education and Outreach for the International Spring School ‘Cultural Heritage & Wellbeing: Collections and Creative Health’ in London (UK).

The focus of this spring school is how different types of heritage collections (e.g. natural history, Ancient Egypt, special book collections, archives, etc.) can be used for the development of cultural heritage-based creative health activities.

During the five-day program, participants will receive theoretical insights, discuss and reflect on the professional development needed to develop their own resource.

Who is this training for?

Professionals working in cultural heritage organisations (museums, archives, galleries, libraries with special collections, etc.);

Practitioners (with an interest in) working with heritage in community engagement and creative health;

Students and researchers in the fields of creative health, museum studies, etc.

What you’ll gain

Insights into working on creative health through (special) heritage collections;

Being able to develop a plan for your own professional development in this area;

Acquire knowledge on how to develop resources and design cultural heritage-based wellbeing activities;

Present the rationale for a resource to the group.

Practical information

Location: London, UK (Flanders House, Grant Museum of Zoology, UCL East campus, National Archives UK, Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology).

Fee: €550,-. This includes lunches (Tuesday - Thursday), beverages and a welcoming reception on Monday.

There is a maximum of 20 participants.

English will be the main language during the spring school.

Participants are expected to bring their own laptops.

Delivery Team

Bart De Nil (chair) is a practitioner and PhD researcher between University College London Arts & Sciences and Information Studies, investigating public libraries as social infrastructure for creative health. For the past decade he has been leading developments in culturally mediated wellbeing in Flanders, Belgium and internationally. He will deliver several workshops aimed at improving the professional development of the participants who want to use cultural heritage for wellbeing activities. Bart will also give the participants a final group assignment in which they can use everything they have learned during the spring school.
Thomas Kador is a lecturer in Creative Health at University College London Arts & Sciences. He is a material culture specialist with research interests in the health and wellbeing potential of (cultural) spaces, collections, and objects. He convenes UCL's MASc Creative Health program, which focuses on non-clinical, asset-based health interventions. He will provide us with an interesting lecture on creative health and cultural heritage collections.
Diederick Nuyttens and Celien Stevens both work for TOON, the Flemish service organisation that connects heritage with the healthcare and wellbeing sectors, offering advice, inspiration, and practical resources for preservation and care. TOON organizes workshops, consultations, and projects to foster collaboration between cultural heritage and health-related fields. They will deliver a workshop on creative engagement with collections related to healthcare and wellbeing.
Claire-Wellesley Smith is a researcher and artist from the UK, who specialises in long-term engagements with post-industrial textile communities across northern England. Her research explores connections between health, wellbeing and heritage through textile-based activities.
Additional names will be added to the list in the coming weeks.