I recently attended a roundtable in the UK Parliament’s House of Commons that explored a topic not often discussed within traditional health policy conversations: the role of the arts during war.
Convened by John Slinger MP alongside Christopher Bailey from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Stephen Stapleton of the Jameel Arts & Health Lab, the discussion brought together clinicians, artists, policymakers, researchers and practitioners working across Ukraine and other conflict-affected regions. The focus was simple but profound: how can the arts support recovery, resilience and healing in times of war?
At first glance, this might seem far removed from the everyday work of public health systems. But the conversation quickly revealed something deeper. When we talk about health, particularly in contexts of trauma and conflict, we are often really talking about people’s ability to rebuild meaning, connection and identity.
And sometimes, the arts are where that rebuilding begins.
When trauma shuts down the brain
One of the most striking examples shared during the discussion came from Ukraine’s Unbroken rehabilitation programme.
Christopher Bailey described how clinicians were working with returning prisoners of war who had endured extreme torture. Neurological scans showed something alarming: no measurable activity in the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for decision-making, emotional regulation and social behaviour.
Traditional talk therapies proved difficult. For many patients, verbal recall triggered overwhelming flashbacks. Medication helped them sleep, but it did little to restore cognitive function.
Art therapy, however, appeared to unlock something different.
Within six weeks of structured art-based interventions, clinicians observed brain activity returning to normal ranges.
It was a powerful reminder that healing from trauma is not always linear or purely clinical. Sometimes the pathways back to wellbeing are creative, sensory and relational.
Clinical psychologist Dr Angela Kennedy built on this point, noting that diagnoses such as PTSD often fail to capture how trauma affects everyday life: relationships, trust, identity and a sense of belonging. Arts-based interventions, she explained, are showing promising results in addressing conditions such as burnout and moral injury, the psychological distress that can arise when individuals witness or participate in morally challenging events.
For researchers like Dr Henry Redwood from King’s College London, the scale of these programmes in Ukraine presents an unprecedented opportunity to learn. He called for a randomised controlled trial to better understand the clinical impact of arts therapies, with the potential to inform veteran care internationally.
Culture on the frontline
While some of the discussion focused on clinical settings, other speakers described how cultural initiatives are operating much closer to the frontline.
Representatives from Ukraine’s Unbroken programme explained that their work began in the earliest days of the invasion, in improvised basement workshops where artists began working with injured civilians and soldiers. Since then, the initiative has expanded to include training programmes that equip artists with trauma-informed skills so they can safely work within hospitals and rehabilitation centres.
Another initiative, Cultural Forces, started as a way for musicians with military backgrounds to relieve stress among soldiers. Today the organisation operates eight mobile cultural units that perform around 2,000 concerts each year on the frontline, supporting morale and mental wellbeing among combat units.
But their work also extends beyond the battlefield.
Across Ukraine, communities are grappling with how to remember the losses of war. Rather than restoring empty Soviet-era monuments, Cultural Forces is helping communities create new memorials participatory spaces such as metallic trees hung with chimes representing fallen soldiers. These become places not only of remembrance, but of collective reflection.
The arts as witness
Another perspective came from Professor David Cotterell, an official UK war artist who was deployed to Afghanistan.
Cotterell described the role of the arts as something that is sometimes overlooked in discussions about recovery: the arts can also act as witness.
At the time of his deployment, journalists were restricted from documenting British casualties. Operating largely on trust, Cotterell was able to observe and record the realities of modern warfare, witnessing 77 injuries and two deaths.
Rather than producing isolated images, he chose to follow injured soldiers along their treatment pathways for a full year, documenting what happened long after media attention faded.
For many of the young soldiers he met, the challenge was not only physical recovery but understanding what had happened to them and what their future might look like.
Cotterell argued that access to personal medical records and narrative documentation can help recovering veterans rebuild a sense of identity and meaning. In this way, the arts can support people in making sense of radically altered lives.
Healing communities, not just individuals
Several contributors stressed that while therapy is often framed at the level of the individual, trauma caused by war is rarely experienced in isolation.
Dr John, a psychiatrist from Northern Ireland, reflected on lessons from the Troubles, where cross-community cultural initiatives helped rebuild relationships between communities and played a role in processes of reconciliation and transitional justice.
Christopher Bailey noted that in many conflicts, including in Gaza and northern Nigeria, culture itself becomes a target. When cultural identity is threatened or erased, collective artistic expression can become both a therapeutic act and a form of resistance.
In this context, healing cannot be separated from culture.
Small acts that create stability
The conversation also highlighted the role of the arts in supporting children living in conflict.
George Richards from the Jameel Arts & Health Lab described work in partnership with Save the Children supporting displaced children in Palestine. In environments where rockets and bombardments are part of daily life, even simple creative tools can make a difference.
Sometimes it is as simple as giving a child a crayon and a piece of paper.
That act may seem small, but it creates a moment of normality, a space for expression and emotional safety.
Charlotte Hans from the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport shared another example from Lebanon, where a music school supports Palestinian children to learn traditional instruments while employing parents to build those instruments locally. The result is not only cultural continuity but also economic stability and community resilience.
What this means for public health
Public health is often described as the science and art of protecting and improving population health through organised societal action.
Listening to these discussions, it was clear that the arts sit squarely within that definition.
They are not a replacement for clinical care. But they offer something complementary: the ability to rebuild relationships, restore identity, and strengthen communities after trauma.
For public health systems, this raises important questions.
How do we recognise the value of creative approaches within health systems?
How do we support evidence generation while still allowing innovation to emerge from grassroots initiatives?
How do we use culture in the context of increasing global conflict and instability?
And how do we ensure that funding structures support long-term work rather than short-term projects?
These questions were echoed in the closing remarks by John Slinger MP, who argued that despite strong evidence of their social and health benefits, the arts remain significantly underfunded.
A broader mindset shift
Perhaps the most powerful takeaway from the roundtable was not a single programme or statistic, but a shift in perspective.
Health is not only produced in clinics, hospitals or policy frameworks. It is shaped in communities, relationships, culture and creativity.
In contexts of conflict, where trauma can fracture both individuals and societies, the arts help rebuild the threads that hold communities together.
For those of us working in public health, that insight feels particularly relevant. If we are serious about prevention, resilience and long-term wellbeing, we need to broaden how we think about the systems that support health.
Sometimes the tools we need are not only clinical or technological.
Sometimes they are creative.
And sometimes they begin with something as simple as a blank page.
