Art Fund promotes the health benefits of art in its autumn campaign
Our new National Art Pass campaign, ’See More, Live More’, spotlights the health and wellbeing benefits of art and culture.
Entering a museum is a great way to boost your wellbeing. Whether it’s a calm gallery space where you can meditate on works of art, an interactive exhibition where you can play and unleash your creativity, or a museum display that deep-dives into a historical moment you were never taught about at school – art, and the brilliant spaces where we experience it, can help us to unwind, get creative and expand our minds.
Plus, there are studies that demonstrate the positive impacts that engaging with the arts could have on our physical health, too.
That’s why, this autumn, we’re launching See More, Live More, a campaign to promote the National Art Pass that celebrates the many ways that spending more time with art and culture is good for your wellbeing. At Art Fund, we believe that access to art is vital for a healthy society and that the UK’s museums are an untapped resource that can help improve our lives by alleviating stress, providing joy, creating opportunities to learn, combatting loneliness, and so much more.
About the campaign
This campaign expands on last year's, which explored the impact of looking at art by using cutting-edge technologies that visualised live brainwaves. It also builds on research we commissioned in 2018 that explored the impact that museums and galleries can have on wellbeing. The report revealed that 63% of participants had visited a museum to ‘de-stress’ but only 6% carve out the time to visit them regularly.
Dr Anthony Woods, researcher at King’s College London and an expert in the benefits of art on health, partnered with us on See More, Live More to provide further insight into the connection between art and wellbeing.
Engaging with the arts is proven to help reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress, and will enhance overall mental health. What’s more, there’s even scientific evidence to suggest that engaging with art may help you live a longer and more fulfilling life
The campaign is inspired by research from University College London (UCL), which shows that regular consumption of the arts is associated with significantly reduced risk of dying prematurely*. The study, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and led by Dr Daisy Fancourt, shows that those who regularly engage with the arts have a 31% lower risk of dying early.
Experiencing art in museums can also stimulate the brain, reports the Guardian. In the Netherlands, a neurological study demonstrates that when people look at a work of art in a museum, their brains are stimulated in a way that is 10 times stronger than when looking at a reproduction of the same work. The real works created a strong positive response in the precuneus, part of the brain involved with consciousness, self-reflection and personal memories.
Find out more about National Art Pass.
About the research
*The study by Dr Daisy Fancourt (UCL Epidemiology & Health Care) shows that those who regularly engage with the arts have a 31% lower risk of dying early. This is based on data from 6,710 adults aged 50 and over from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) and followed up the mixed group of men and women after 14 years. The association between a longer life and the arts remained even after factors such as health, age and wealth were accounted for.
A Swedish study from 2024 showed that ’There is an association between attending arts and culture activities and a reduced risk of CVD [cardiovascular diseases] and other-cause mortality (but not cancer mortality)’. There is an association between attending arts and culture activities and a reduced risk of CVD and other-cause mortality, although model imperfections are possible.