This is the fifth in a series examining the role of art in health care.
What does togetherness sound like?
Chúng ta cùng hát để thư giãn đầu óc nhé. Chị ơi, chị hát trước đi.
“Let’s sing to clear our heads. Sister, you begin.” (Click here to listen)
Togetherness is inviting others to walk side by side, inviting each other in; sharing in life, health, and well-being.
A large proportion of immigration and refugee settlement and health-care workers are immigrants themselves. In Ontario, approximately 68.7 per cent of practitioners in direct settlement service roles are newcomers. Across Canada, one in four health-care workers are newcomers, with roles including nursing, physicians and allied health occupations.
This is also true for the arts and culture sector, where immigrants account for 21 per cent of independent artists, writers and performers.
Arts as a bridge to wellness
Both newcomer participants and practitioners experience multi-layered barriers to healthcare, including limited access to primary care, language challenges, system distrust, limited culturally tailored mental health services and fragmented care. Both need support, in different ways.
Common universal “languages” help bridge those differences. Music, art, culinary traditions, storytelling, recreational games and symbols unite across cultural divides.
When participants and practitioners engage in the arts together, the benefits are even more potent. Across community arts programming and expressive arts therapy spaces, creative engagement provides a practical and accessible pathway to improved well-being, grounded in three interconnected experiences: respite, relationships and reimagination.
Respite
Daily life can feel relentless, particularly for newcomers managing the pressures of settlement alongside ongoing concern for family, health and global events. Participants often describe feelings of helplessness and exhaustion shaped by experiences of racism, displacement, conflict and uncertainty. Creative expression offers a form of respite that is grounding and restorative.
Community arts programs may not resolve these structural realities. What they offer instead is something equally necessary: a temporary shift in pace. Individuals temporarily can step away from constant demands, transitions and focus their attention to attuning to their own bodies, responses and needs.
As one participant says, “Life is always changing, and even after many years here, I still feel like I’m learning every day. We are always newcomers in some way… even when life is stressful, it’s important to find small moments to enjoy. The [art] program gives me energy and helps me relax and recharge. Sometimes life makes us feel like machines, but we need to feel human again.”
Artmaking focuses people on what is within their control. It creates room for small, sustained acts of expression while still acknowledging what feels too large to carry alone. Participants often describe arriving depleted and leaving with renewed energy.
These spaces also matter for those who facilitate them. Many practitioners are themselves newcomers or community members responding to needs they have experienced firsthand. In creating these caring, supportive environments, they exercise agency and find connection, meaning and fulfillment in their work.
“Creating this kind of space is very important. As a newcomer, I remember needing places like this to connect with others,” shares community artist Ebru Winegard. “Even without a shared language, art becomes a way to communicate. It allows people to observe, learn from one another, and appreciate what others create, even without fully understanding it at first.”
Creative expression, in this context, is not an escape. It is a necessary pause that allows individuals and communities to sustain themselves, and to connect with others with similar experiences.
Relationships
Connection extends beyond the activity itself. For many newcomers, these spaces help transform unfamiliar environments into places of belonging.
“Drawing isn’t just about art it’s about feeling,” Access Alliance community arts participant Sahar says. “It helps you connect with others and creates a sense of value and meaning. In these workshops, we feel like children again, and it recharges me. They offer a space to learn, connect, and build community while discovering different cultures.”
The relation extends to practitioners, who also describe how facilitating arts-based programming strengthens their own sense of belonging and purpose.
“For me, community arts helped me feel anchored in this country. It made me feel like I can call this place home,” says Ebru. “At first, it was practical – I could earn money. Then it became a way to meet people. But on a deeper level, it fulfilled an emotional need and helped me feel connected.”
Reimagination
Creative expression also expands how people see themselves and their possibilities. Through artmaking, they move beyond fixed ways of thinking and begin to explore new perspectives.
This shift is not abstract.
“Artmaking invites us to loosen fixed ways of seeing and enter a more playful, imaginative space,” says Dena Pourbazargan, one of our expressive arts student placements. It encourages us to explore possibilities, think more flexibly, and move beyond right-or-wrong judgments into curiosity and openness. By shifting perspectives, we expand our capacity to respond to life with greater empathy and creativity.”
Dena describes what other participants have experienced: discovering new aspects of themselves and reconnecting with creativity and developing a sense of capability and confidence. Through this process, they begin to reimagine not only what they can create, but who they are now and how they relate to the world around them.
A profound impact
These moments are not dramatic or immediate transformations. They are subtle shifts: a participant returning each week; a conversation that feels easier; a growing sense of confidence; a new way of expressing something that once felt inexpressible.
In many community arts programs, small creative acts accumulate into meaningful change. In one of our art programs, we made papier mache hearts called Milagritos, meaning “little miracles.” They are small symbolic objects traditionally used to express hope or gratitude. Participants created their own versions as a way of reflecting on what they carry, and what they wish for.
Practitioners do not need to be artists to facilitate these experiences. They simply need a willingness to create space for expression, to prioritize connection and to recognize the value of small, consistent moments of engagement.
Sometimes, what looks like a small moment – a song, a drawing, a shared activity – can carry the weight of something much larger. In these moments, art does not simply reflect life. It helps sustain it.
These are not abstract benefits. They are directly tied to how people cope with stress, build social support and navigate complex life transitions. If we are serious about improving health outcomes, particularly for populations navigating systemic barriers, creative expression should not be treated as an add-on. It should be recognized as a practical, accessible component of care.
