As part of the programme for this year’s Society for Academic Primary Care Annual Scientific Meeting (SAPC ASM), which we are hosting in Bristol on 3-5 July, we are inviting submissions for an art exhibition on the theme of water and health. Successful submissions will be displayed at the conference and online. There will be prizes of £150 for outstanding entries. Anyone is welcome to make a submission, including delegates to the conference.

Tiled montage of images of sea, ocean, dolphins, sharks, whales, coast and people swimming and deep sea diving.

The exhibition is being organised by Dr Alan Kellas and Dr Catherine Lamont-Robinson from Bristol Medical School. Both Alan and Catherine lead a Year 3 medical student research project around ‘Blue Health’, which is the inspiration for the exhibition titled: ‘Turning the tide: water as medicine – exploring water’s role in sustaining health for our global and community futures: a multimedia enquiry and collaboration between arts and science, evidence and practice, medicine and ecology’.

Dr Lamont-Robinson said:

“Blue Health brings our attention to the potential public health gains of connecting people with water, caring for our waterways and protecting bio-diversity. As one of seven national Green and Blue social prescribing sites, Bristol Medical School has developed a lively community of health practitioners becoming more ‘water aware’ and is committed to helping our future doctors become ‘ocean and water literate’. This arts-based research exhibition aims to explore and promote the benefits of being in, on, under, or near water through scientific understanding, complemented by creative and cultural perspectives, while recognising too, the risks water can present.”

Successful submissions will be displayed in the grand entrance hall of Wills Memorial Building at the University of Bristol throughout the conference and on the Out of our Heads website.

Submissions from across the arts are welcome – visual 2D/3D, music, multi-media, prose and poetry – with your creative response to one of three themes:

Water Under Pressure: how drought, flood, desalination, river degradation, chemical pollution and coastal stress have impacted on the public health.
Water and Well-Being: the joys of being alongside water, drinking the stuff, hydrotherapy, blue prescribing.
Water Elemental: abstract or visceral responses to the nature of water as a source of life.

You may already have work that fits one of these themes, which you are welcome to submit.

The deadline for submissions is 4 June 2024.

Enquiries and submissions

Please send all enquiries and submissions by the deadline to: catherineannlr@msn.com

Free workshop

Alan and Catherine will be running a free hybrid workshop (in-person in Bristol and online) on 29 May, for those who would like to find out more about Blue Health and/or meet other creatives interested in and working in healthcare and community contexts.

Details:

In-person: 4.30-6.30pm, Canynge Hall, Room 1.14, Whatley Road, Bristol BS8 2PS
Online: 5.00-6.30pm via Zoom.

Please contact catherineannlr@msn.com for queries.

Poster

Poster for Turning the Tide exhibition.

Partner exhibition

Continuing the strong creative strand at the SAPC conference, there will be a second exhibition in the Common Room in Wills Memorial Building, called ‘To see Oursels: Insights into clinical practice through the artistic works of medical students and doctors’.

Scroll down here for some examples already curated.

Black and white darwn illustration of a man in a suit by a computer throwing a life ring on a rope to a man in a suit being swallowed by a vortex coming from a crack in the earth and with the words drugs, alcoholism and depression inscribed around the vortex.