ABOUT THE FESTIVAL — EST. 2026
Reimagining Delhi as the
Capital of Care.
The Delhi Arts & Health Festival (DAHF) emerges from a simple question:
What would it look like if we placed care at the centre of city life?
THE FESTIVAL STORY
Around the world, communities are grappling with rising mental health concerns, loneliness, burnout, social fragmentation, environmental uncertainty, and increasing pressures on healthcare systems.
At the same time, there is growing recognition that wellbeing is shaped by more than medicine alone.
Our relationships, cultures, environments, stories, and opportunities for expression all play a role in how we heal, connect, and thrive.
DAHF brings together artists, healthcare practitioners, researchers, educators, policymakers, organisations, and communities to explore the role of creativity in individual and collective wellbeing.
More than a festival, it is an invitation to imagine new possibilities for care, connection, and community.
WHAT THE EVIDENCE SHOWS
Creative engagement measurably reduces stress, anxiety and social isolation.
Participatory arts support recovery from illness and improve quality of life.
Cultural participation strengthens community cohesion and civic trust.
Arts-integrated care makes health systems more human and more effective.
Sources: WHO, Arts Council England, Cochrane Review, Creative Health APPG.
DELHI · ARTS · HEALTH
OUR VISION
To nurture a future where arts and creativity are recognised as fundamental to health, healing, and human flourishing.
Our vision is not aspirational — it is already being built, one conversation, one collaboration, one community at a time.
OUR MISSION
THE FESTIVAL
An extraordinary gathering
Our mission is to design and deliver a week-long, city-wide Arts and Health Festival in Delhi in December 2026 that brings together diverse communities, practitioners, institutions, and thought leaders to explore the intersections of arts, medicine, science, culture, and community wellbeing.
THE COMMUNITY
Rooted in every neighbourhood
The festival will create accessible opportunities for public participation while also offering professional platforms for learning, dialogue, and collaboration among artists, healthcare providers, researchers, educators, and policymakers. Owing to over 50 workshops, performances, conversations, research exchanges, and community-based initiatives, the festival aims to engage at least 10,000 participants across multiple venues in the city, ensuring that programming reaches both specialised professional audiences and the wider public.
LONG-TERM IMPACT
A legacy that outlasts the programme
Beyond the festival itself, the mission is to catalyse long-term impact by strengthening cross-sector partnerships, supporting the integration of arts-based approaches within healthcare and community settings, encouraging research and innovation, and laying the foundation for a sustainable arts-in-health ecosystem in India and the broader South Asian region. The initiative aspires not only to host an annual event, but to contribute to an ongoing movement that recognises creativity as a vital resource for health, resilience, and social wellbeing.
WHY NOW?
Global Momentum
For decades, the connection between creativity and health was treated as supplementary — a kindness rather than a science. That is changing. Health systems across the world are recognising what communities have always known: the arts are not decorative. They are essential. Across the world, arts and health is increasingly recognised as a legitimate and evidence-informed field of practice.
Institutions such as the World Health Organisation, University College London, Johns Hopkins University, and numerous healthcare systems globally have invested in research demonstrating the role of arts and creativity in supporting health outcomes, reducing isolation, strengthening communities, and improving quality of life.
The Delhi Arts & Health Festival is not introducing a new idea. It is joining and contributing to a growing global movement.
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
900+ studies reviewed by WHO confirm the arts improve mental and physical health outcomes.
Social prescribing — doctors referring patients to arts activities — now embedded in NHS England and 30+ national health systems.
India’s National Health Policy 2017 acknowledges the role of traditional and creative practices in community wellbeing.
GLOBAL SOUTH ARTS & HEALTH INITIATIVE
A new centre of gravity for arts and health — in the Global South.
The Delhi Arts & Health Festival is inspired and co-produced by the Global South Arts & Health Initiative (GSAH), an international network working to advance arts and health education, research, practice, and collaboration across the Global South. Established in 2023 by the Global Arts in Medicine Fellowship (GAIMF), GSAH brings together practitioners, researchers, educators, healthcare professionals, artists, and institutions working at the intersections of creativity, health, and wellbeing. Through international collaborations, learning opportunities, conferences, fellowships, and knowledge exchange, the initiative seeks to strengthen arts and health ecosystems across diverse cultural and geographical contexts.
As part of this growing network, DAHF contributes to broader conversations around health, creativity, culture, and community while connecting local practice with regional and international learning.
INDIA & DELHI’S OPPORTUNITY
A country where culture, creativity, health and community have always intersected.
India has always held deep relationships between creativity, ritual, culture, community, healing, and collective life.
Yet contemporary conversations around health often remain disconnected from artistic and cultural practice.
At a time when cities are facing increasing challenges around mental health, loneliness, social fragmentation, environmental stress, displacement, migration, and changing community structures, there is an opportunity to reconnect care with creativity.
Delhi offers a uniquely powerful site for this conversation. It is a city shaped by migration, memory, diversity, resilience, contradiction, and constant reinvention. These realities make it an ideal place to imagine new relationships between culture, health, public life, and community wellbeing.
FESTIVAL IMPACT GOALS
WHAT WE ARE BUILDING TOWARD
01 — Community
Strengthening connections between individuals, organisations, practitioners, and communities.
02 — Ecosystem DEVELOPMENT
Supporting the growth and visibility of the arts and health field in India.
03 — Research & KNOWLEDGE
Creating opportunities for learning, documentation, collaboration, and dissemination.
04 — PROFESSIONAL Practice
Supporting artists, therapists, healthcare professionals, researchers, and educators working across the field.
05 — Public ENGAGEMENT
Making conversations around health, wellbeing, and creativity more visible and accessible.
06 — Systems INFLUENCE
Contributing to discussions across healthcare, education, culture, and policy.
Delhi Arts and Health Festival 