Hello Koalas Heads to Houston, Texas, USA!

The Hello Koalas Sculpture Project, an initiative of Arts and Health Australia, is proud to be participating in the Global Alliance for Arts and Health conference at Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston in April 2014.

Global Alliance for Arts and Health conference 2014 logoHello Koalas Sculpture Project is designed as a community cultural development program with many layers and contexts including an Art, Poetry and Dementia program, supported by the NSW Government to promote dementia friendly communities in New South Wales.

We will be inviting all involved in the Global Alliance for Arts and Health international conference to contribute their fingerprint to create an overall design of fingerprints on a one metre high fibreglass koala sculpture, ensuring that all attending are represented in a personal and lasting way. Each fingerprint will celebrate each person’s distinctive and unique sense of identity and place within the global arts and health community and create a permanent record of the 25th anniversary arts and health conference – through the acquisition of the sculpture for the art collection of the Texas Children’s Hospital.

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It is also significant that the koala, a species under threat, is only one of two animals, which has an individual fingerprint. Each koala has a different fingerprint from other koalas, as in humans. This reinforces the links between humanity and nature and the importance of koala care and conservation to preserve the species and environmental sustainability.

We hope this collaborative art-making experience will reinforce the important message that the field of Arts and Health is a creative pathway to health and wellbeing because its practice recognises the core and intrinsic value of all people – irrespective of culture and circumstance. And we know it will be lots of good fun and camaraderie.

For more information about the Global Alliance for Arts and Health Conference at Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston, see the Conference Program.

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