Arts, Health, Community Resilience and Healing: Responding to Natural Disaster

This paper discusses a pilot study of a grass roots led community initiative set in motion to engender healing, resilience and regeneration through art and creativity in rural Tasmania. This was done as a response to a natural disaster and trauma after the East Coast Bushfire, 2006. It places the initiative in a broader context of rural community response to disaster and difficulty. Rural communities such as in the Grampians in Victoria in 2007; on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, 2006; and from the East Coast, Tasmania in 2007, have responded to bushfire disaster using art and culture to engender healing and resilience. As well as contributing to community healing and regeneration, a common focus appearing in these responses is that of the importance of documenting local knowledge and the recording of history to inform in the event of future occurrences. These initiatives are seen to have a significant though relatively undocumented impact on their community’s mental health and wellbeing. The importance of exploring community response to natural disaster, art, culture and creativity is that it provides vital insights into community resilience and community mental health issues, building on local knowledge and lifelong learning.