The public art of healing: Facilitating trauma-informed design in the built environment
Last year I set out on a mission — to combine my seemingly incongruent passions of art, mental wellness, and urban planning in a single body of research — that, with any luck, I could pass off as my honours thesis. Luck I had, and my exploration of trauma-informed practice proved a timely inquiry amid the challenges our cities have faced in recent times. In this article, I reflect on the key concepts underpinning my thesis — in hopes that through art, our urban places might be more compassionate and healing.
The value of art
We don’t need to dig deep to appreciate the impact of the arts on our wellbeing. Some of our most transformational, memorable, or awe-inspiring experiences may well be attached to culture. We might vividly recall the sea of bodies that surrounded us one sultry summer’s evening, as we felt that pummelling punch-in-the-chest vibration of the kick-drum at a live festival. Or perhaps we fondly reminisce on the solitude of a crisp morning in late May, as we encountered a half-hidden, wholly-beautiful artwork along our daily commute. In any case, these micro-expressions of community and creativity have a way of sticking with us long thereafter.
Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once described art as the highest form of self-expression, insofar as being a first-order matter.¹ Some 150 years later, many of us might also consider access to the arts as complementary to our basic physiological needs. So, contrary to what any highbrow music performances or ‘white cube’ gallery experiences may have us believe — culture is not a luxury. Rather, it is something inseparable from a genuine human existence. And perhaps even more remarkably, culture offers a glimpse of something that may be more difficult to reliably access in our everyday lives — hope.
For this very reason, creative expression in the form of artmaking, music, and literature has been leveraged as an indispensable tool in times of adversity. Arts on Prescription is an arts-based engagement model that realises this sentiment, prescribing creative activities as a complement to medical treatment from the UK to Australia.²
This value of the arts is underscored in the post-traumatic setting — the World Health Organization recognises how art can reduce the impact of trauma as “a tool for community building and post-disaster development.” ³ A 2015 study by Bender et al. investigating the role of creative engagement following a devastating earthquake in Talca, Chile, similarly affirmed that —
“…while artmaking does not seem to be a manner in which most people process feelings and thoughts after exposure to a disastrous event, those who intuitively do so name artmaking as essential to their ability to cope.” ⁴
Evidently, art brings comfort in the most difficult of times and reaches where clinical interventions sometimes cannot. Formal approaches to the arts and mental health sectors, are, however, largely dichotomous: mental health policy is systemically top-down, scientific, and prescriptive; while approaches to the arts are more often characterised by bottom-up, organic, and experimental practices.⁵
This is the challenge recent reports such as Connected Lives: Creative solutions to the mental health crisis seek to address, by developing novel and creative approaches to mental health in Australia.⁶ Indeed, this recognition is positive; yet what is often left out in policy and practice is the enormous opportunity to stage these strategies in the public realm.
Public art, public space…public interest?
A similar (‘it’s complicated’) relationship can be observed within the built environment. Historically, the governance of public art has held a more narrow concern to public wellbeing. Public art often fulfilled a purely commemorative or aesthetic function, reflecting a myopic version of a shared national history.
Today, public art engages more abstract concerns and ephemeral interpretations of site, memory, and meaning⁷ — yet the emotional realm is largely left untraversed. How public art might move towards an agenda of healing is a concept explored lesser still.
We think of the ‘public interest’ when considering how a decision might benefit the welfare of the community at large. Though we must interrogate what ‘public’ means in this context — it is not merely a qualifying description of place, access, or ownership⁸ — but one of representation, too. If art is truly public, it must function in a relational capacity, reflecting the “metropolis of multiple perspectives” ⁹ that we encounter in the cityscape. Regrettably, this is often difficult to edit down to a single view of public space and the art that occupies it.
Yet it is precisely this instinctive need to relate that draws us to culture. We look to art to affirm our experience of the world; to find ourselves, maybe even lose ourselves; to reflect on what stands before us and posit quietly — “maybe I’m a little like that too.” How many times have we encountered a public artwork that did just that?
More attention should be given to the role of public art as a public good or service (in other words, art in the public interest), beyond the confines of its public siting. Notwithstanding, stringent planning controls, limiting curatorial themes, and inflexible timeframes are often part of the equation — and with a common denominator of community — accommodating both public and private interests can be a rather complex problem to solve. A key tension therefore lies in how the fluidity of creative expression and collective memory can be reconciled with the prescriptive technicalities of the urban planning system.
Encouragingly, the link between public space and wellbeing is now supported by a growing body of research that supports the design of healthy places, wherein the arts and cultural sector has a vital role. In 2020 and 2021, nearly one in two surveyed NSW residents reported having spent more time in public spaces than before COVID-19.¹⁰ The NSW Public Spaces Charter, released in 2021, identifies ‘Culture and creativity’ as a core principle of public space, inclusive of public art.¹¹
What happens, then, when this public space becomes the site of a collectivised tragedy?
Trauma-informed urbanism
The notion of trauma-informed practice is a relatively emergent constellation of theories applicable to the built environment and urban policy.¹² In essence, it refers to therapeutic approaches in the arts, healthcare, and placemaking that are characterised by an understanding of, and responsiveness to, the impacts of trauma. Look no further than creative responses to earthquakes in Christchurch and flood-affected communities in Lismore, and we can understand the merit in post-traumatic art. This type of art lends a visual language to our thoughts and lived experience that may be too complex, raw, or abstract to express through words.
Trauma devastates the social engagement system, interfering with our ability to function as a productive member of the clan.¹³ Our urban places hold onto these narratives too — it has been observed that “traumatic incidents dislocate the lived and imagined landscapes of a city’s emotional ecosystem.” ¹⁴ Given the brain is biologically designed to be attuned with others¹⁵, it is logical that shared adversities be remedied with collaborative processes. And trauma-informed community art may purvey just that.
Guiding principles
I propose the following three principles as the foundation for trauma-informed public art processes.
Community participation
At the heart of any trauma-informed practice is a community with lived experience. Public art processes that are genuinely participatory involve the community throughout the process, from ideation to installation. There is great power held at the local level — working with local artists and community is conducive to practical experimentation, conceptual rigour, and meaningful payoff. Local councils and organisations may become involved in a facilitator capacity, to ensure outcomes are pragmatic and place-based.
Notwithstanding, there is an often-disproportionate amount of agency between the organisation, artist, and community at large — where artists may have the mobility to move to one place after another¹⁶, communities stricken with trauma often do not. Acknowledging this power dynamic, we may begin to understand the value in creative participation; not only as a form of co-production, but also as an end product in itself. Social connections are forged, and the creation of art is leveraged as a human right.
Site responsiveness
The historic and cultural associations of a site are foundational considerations in the development of trauma-informed art. Each place we encounter has an affective atmosphere — a conscience, we could say. This is even truer of sites with traumatic histories. These sites of conscience¹⁷ may not just exist as a single or centrally located entity — where impacts of disaster are widespread, such as the effects of flooding, there is potential for public art projects to be distributed across a vast area.
Public artworks of this nature need not be trauma-centric — in fact, reflecting such a painful memory may prove more harmful than healing. To genuinely ameliorate a place, practitioners should sensitively engage with the compassionate associations of a site, such as the community response to tragedy. Take Reflection for instance, an intricate public artwork that immortalises the bouquets once laid in Martin Place following the 2014 Sydney siege. Places are not static — they are living — and it is essential these cultural narratives are lent a tangible quality in our urban environment.
Transdisciplinary collaboration
Trauma-informed public art requires the expertise of multiple disciplines — including psychology and healthcare, social work and community engagement, planning and urban design, and creative arts. Where these sectors may otherwise work in isolation, it is vital practitioners collaborate in a transdisciplinary capacity, creating a nexus of various disciplines to generate new knowledge and innovative solutions. The Creative Recovery Network is a prime example of cross-sectoral collaboration used for participatory creative programs that are trauma-informed.
Stakeholder collaboration may also work to address the common problem of artistic burnout — artists working in the disaster context often carry the work of multiple job descriptions, from creator to emotional labourer. With the professional support of mental healthcare workers, projects can successfully create a container of care¹⁸, thereby supporting the wellbeing of the artist and the wider community.
Creative-driven recovery — a way forward
The narrative is clear — participatory arts-based engagement is the lifeblood for many trauma-affected communities. While the history of public art has largely unfolded outside the emotional domain, public space may well be the ultimate canvas for societal autobiographies. Though to paint this picture, further investigation into trauma-informed design is imperative.
Many questions are yet to be answered — How might a degree of community ‘healing’ be evaluated? What is needed to reframe community art from a grassroots activity to a genuine asset of community development worthy of investment? And, perhaps most plainly — What is art for?
What is certain, is the requirements of public art within the trauma context extend well beyond the remit of current public art processes, and indeed, the wider planning context of the built environment. Trauma-informed public art must leverage the principles of community participation, site responsiveness, and transdisciplinary collaboration if it is to be legitimately healing.
In this uncertain climate, it is likely the disasters we bear witness to will be cataclysmic, cascading, and compounding; leaving an ineffable imprint on our communities and the very urban environments we inhabit. Our cities ought to reflect these narratives, and it is through creative expression that a universal language can be found. With enough attention, trauma-informed public art will not merely become part of the vernacular, but be recognised as an integrated community-oriented practice of the built environment.
In spite of, or perhaps precisely because of the tragedy that surrounds us, we must not lose sight of what matters; what moves us, transforms us, and heals us.
Because if not art — what else?
“This is an extraordinary time full of vital, transformative moments that could not be foreseen. It’s also a nightmarish time. Full engagement requires the ability to perceive both. It’s important to say what hope is not: it is not the belief that everything was, is, or will be fine. Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act.”
— Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities, 2016.
Recommended citation
Reddy, E 2023, ‘The public art of healing: Facilitating trauma-informed design in the built environment’, Medium, 20 March.
Endnotes
Throughout: Reddy, E 2022, Artidote: The Public Art of Healing, unpublished BCP Honours thesis, University of New South Wales, Sydney.
¹ Nietzsche, F 1872, The Birth of Tragedy, Penguin UK, London.
² Australian Centre for Arts and Health 2023, Arts on Prescription: The logical step for health and wellbeing.
³ Fancourt, D & Finn, S 2019, What is the evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and well-being? A scoping review, World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, Copenhagen.
⁴ Bender, B & Metzl, ES, Selman, T, Gloger, D & Moreno, N 2015, ‘Creative Soups for the Soul: Stories of Community Recovery in Talca, Chile, After the 2010 Earthquake’, Psyche, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 1–13.
⁵ Bennett, J, Green, R, Mohamed, J & Thorpe, J 2022, Arts, Creativity and Mental Wellbeing Policy Development Program, online panel discussion, Australia Council for the Arts, Melbourne.
⁶ Australia Council for the Arts 2022, A Connected Lives: Creative solutions to the mental health crisis.
⁷ Hein, H 1996, ‘What is Public Art? Time, Place and Meaning’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 54, no. 1, pp. 1–7.
⁸ Lacy, S 1995, ‘Cultural Pilgrimages and Metaphoric Journeys’ in S Lacy (ed), Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art, Bay Press, Seattle, pp. 19–47.
⁹ Baca, JF 1995, ‘Whose Monument Where? Public Art in a Many-Cultured Society’ in S Lacy (ed), Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art, Bay Press, Seattle, pp. 131–138.
¹⁰ Department of Planning and Environment 2021a, Public spaces during COVID-19: Adapting to the new normal, NSW Government, Sydney.
¹¹ Department of Planning and Environment 2021b, NSW Public Spaces Charter, NSW Government, Sydney.
¹² Pitter, J 2021, ‘We need to heal traumatised urban landscapes — and people — after COVID’, Policy Options, 9 August.
¹³ Van der Kolk, B 2015, The Body Keeps the Score, Penguin UK, London.
¹⁴ See ref. 12.
¹⁵ See ref. 13.
¹⁶ See Miwon Kwon’s ‘One Place After Another: Site Specific Art and Locational Identity’.
¹⁷ See Sites of Conscience.
¹⁸ Monkivitch, S 2019, Artist’s Well-Being: Sustaining artists working with trauma impacted communities, Creative Responders, podcast.
