About DAHF
Reimagining Delhi as the Capital of Care.
DAHF is a week-long, city-wide initiative exploring the intersection of arts, health and community. Bringing together artists, healthcare practitioners, researchers, educators, policymakers, organisations and the public, it creates spaces for creativity, dialogue and collaboration. Through performances, exhibitions, workshops and knowledge exchange, DAHF strengthens India’s arts and health ecosystem while contributing to global conversations on wellbeing and collective care.
The Festival Story
What would it look like if we placed care at the centre of city life?
DAHF emerges from a simple but urgent question. In our world, communities are grappling with rising mental health concerns, loneliness, burnout, social fragmentation, environmental uncertainty, and increasing pressures on healthcare systems.
Mental Health & Loneliness
rising concerns across generations
Burnout & Fragmentation
the erosion of collective life
Environment & Healthcare Pressure
systemic strain demanding new responses
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.
Vision
Our Vision
To nurture a future where arts and creativity are recognised as fundamental to health, healing, and human flourishing.
Mission
Our Mission
Our mission is to create opportunities for artists, healthcare professionals, researchers, educators, policymakers, cultural practitioners, and communities to come together across disciplines, share knowledge, and explore how arts and creativity can enrich health and wellbeing. Through collaboration, public engagement, and creative exchange, we seek to strengthen the arts and health ecosystem and inspire more compassionate, connected, and inclusive approaches to care and community wellbeing.
Core Philosophy
Expression. Integration. Collective Care. Through the arts.
Rooted in community practice and informed by indigenous knowledge, global traditions, psychology, medicine, neuroscience, and lived experience, the arts are essential to wellbeing and human connection.
Collaboration over fragmentation
Community-centred practice
Accessibility and inclusion
Evidence-informed innovation
Cultural diversity
Ethical engagement
Creativity as a public good
Why Now?
Global Momentum
Across the world, arts and health is increasingly recognised as a legitimate and evidence-informed field of practice. Institutions such as the World Health Organization, 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 DAHF is not introducing a new idea. It is joining and contributing to a growing global movement.
WHO
World Health Organization
Arts, Health & Wellbeing
In 2019, the WHO published a landmark review of over 900 studies concluding that arts engagement can prevent ill health, promote mental health, support recovery, and help manage long-term conditions.
UCL
University College London
Cultural Participation & Longevity
UCL research found that cultural engagement is associated with a 31% lower risk of early mortality, reduced depression and improved cognitive function across the life course.
JHU
Johns Hopkins University
Arts in Clinical Settings
Johns Hopkins has pioneered arts integration in clinical care, demonstrating measurable improvements in patient outcomes, staff wellbeing, and the therapeutic environment.
The evidence is clear. Now the question is not whether the arts contribute to health — but how quickly we can build the systems that allow them to.
Global South
Global South Arts & Health Initiative
In 2023, the Global Arts in Medicine Fellowship established the Global South Arts and Health Initiative — supporting education, research and collaboration across the Global South. DAHF is part of this emerging ecosystem, bringing Delhi’s creative traditions and contemporary ambition into dialogue with partners across Asia, Africa and Latin America.
India & Delhi’s Opportunity
India’s traditions of creativity and healing — from classical music’s therapeutic resonance to the community-binding power of public celebration and storytelling — are not distant history. They are living resources. Delhi, as a city of 33 million, sits at the intersection of ancient wisdom and urgent contemporary challenge. The opportunity is not to import a western model of arts and health, but to build something distinctly Indian, globally significant.
DAHF sits at the intersection of India’s living creative traditions and the global evidence base for arts and health — uniquely positioned to lead a distinctly Indian contribution to this worldwide movement.
Festival Impact
What DAHF Sets Out to Achieve
Six areas of impact guide everything DAHF does.
Community Building
Strengthening social fabric and belonging through shared creative experience
Ecosystem Development
Growing the network of artists, practitioners, researchers and organisations working at the intersection of arts and health
Research & Knowledge Exchange
Generating and sharing evidence that advances understanding of arts and health across India and the world
Professional Practice
Supporting artists and healthcare professionals to work across disciplines with confidence and rigour
Public Engagement
Bringing arts and health into public life — in parks, hospitals, schools, markets and civic spaces
Systems Influence
Working with policymakers and institutions to embed arts and creativity into health systems, education and urban planning
Delhi Arts and Health Festival 