Output details

Towards Sentience

A 6,500 word chapter, commissioned to scrutinize the place of contemporary art and design in relation to end of life care. Increased awareness of the impact of design on health and well-being is evidenced by diverse collaborations. Against a backdrop of conspicuous consumption and global financial downturn, this essay analyses the relationship between design and aspiration for societal well-being, considering how we live our lives, and the manner in which we die. Through an analysis of arts and health development in clinical and community environments, this chapter explores the potential value of culture, design and the arts to people facing their own mortality. It argues that in the face of terminal or life-limiting illness, the humanities offer medicine something other than scientific reductionism, positing that their potential impact on future patients is far reaching.

A draft of this work was presented as the opening address at the 3rd International Conference on Arts, Health and Well-being in Canberra 2011. For this work Parkinson was awarded the International Leadership in Arts and Health, in Australia (2011). This was accompanied by radio and TV interviews (http://www.artsforhealth.org/podcasts). Parkinson is currently exploring a research proposal investigating how the arts may play a part in quality of life experiences over quantity of life interventions. As part of this inquiry, he co-curated an exhibition at the Holden Gallery, MMU, in August 2013: Mortality: Death and the Imagination, for which he wrote an exploratory paper, Present Tense, published in the exhibition catalogue. This exhibition will tour to Columbia and Lithuania in 2014.