Arts + Health: Check Up Check In 2025

Arts + Health: Check Up Check In 2025 programme announced by Réalta, the national resource organisation for Arts + Health in Ireland
Keynote Speaker: Dr Tony Bates

Réalta has published details for Arts + Health: Check Up Check In 2025 and is thrilled to reveal that Dr Tony Bates will be this year’s Keynote Speaker. Dr Bates is a clinical psychologist and Adjunct Professor of Psychology at University College Dublin. He is well known throughout Ireland for his warm and engaging writing and interviews on psychology-related topics. For Check Up Check In, his Keynote title will be ‘The Art of Making our Lives Work’. Arts + Health: Check Up Check In will take place on Wednesday 30 April in Esker Arts, Tullamore. Organised by Réalta, this ‘go to’ event for the arts and health sector features presentations by some of the most exciting and inspiring practitioners working in this field today. Further details and booking information from www.realta.ie The fee for the full day, including lunch, is €30.

Arts + Health: Check Up Check In is open to arts practitioners, healthcare professionals, and anyone interested in learning more about this exciting area. Check Up Check In provides an opportunity for participants to come together to share their experiences, exchange ideas, and support and inspire each other in their practice through a range of themed presentations and workshops.

Further highlights of this year’s exciting Arts + Health: Check Up Check In programme include:

- Sticking Points: What to do when you get stuck – Artists and healthcare professionals share challenges they have faced in their work and look for solutions to overcome them.

- Case Study: Mending HeArts - An art project which enhances health and wellbeing for cardiac patients across Galway City and County. This Creative Ireland-funded project is led by Galway City Council in partnership with Galway County Council, Saolta Arts and Croí Heart & Stroke Charity, in collaboration with HSE West North West.

- What’s My Practice? – A series of workshops examining methodologies employed in collaborative/ participatory arts and health practice in Ireland, across a range of artforms and healthcare contexts.

Announcing details of Arts + Health: Check Up Check In 2025, Claire Meaney, Director of Réalta said “We are absolutely delighted to welcome Dr Tony Bates as our Keynote Speaker for Arts + Health: Check Up Check In 2025. His life-long commitment to positive mental health for all, his deep empathy for his fellow human beings and his engaging and compassionate approach make him one of Ireland’s most highly regarded and sought after healthcare professionals and communicators. We are thrilled and deeply grateful that Dr Bates is joining us this year. Arts + Health: Check Up Check In is a unique opportunity for artists, healthcare professionals, researchers and policy makers to connect, learn, and be inspired. We’re delighted to be presenting this thought-provoking day in Tullamore this year, and we’re most appreciative to Esker Arts and Offaly County Council, in addition to our core funders the Arts Council and the HSE, for all their support.”

- Places for the What’s My Practice? workshops are limited and must be booked in advance. Workshops are outlined below. Please select ONE workshop. You will be prompted to select your workshop on the ticket order page.

WORKSHOP 1.
Exploding Practice: Deconstructing and Reimagining Your Creative Process
Facilitated by artist Luci Kershaw

This workshop invites participants to rethink their creative process through personal methodologies and playful deconstruction. Inspired by Yoko Ono’s instruction cards, artists will break down their approach, create and exchange instructions, and reinterpret their practice through a fresh lens.

WORKSHOP 2.
Research Stories - Understanding the working of the brain through dance
Facilitated by neuroscientist and dancer Anusha Yasoda-Mohan

This workshop explores aspects of Bharathanatyam, a 2,000 year-old classical Indian art form, to understand the modern science of movement and emotions. Participants will combine Bharathanatyam-based techniques to explore the internal world of emotions.

WORKSHOP 3.
Bones of Contention: Artists and Arts Therapists working in health(care) settings – similarities, differences and potential?
Facilitated by Smiling Dog Collective: artist Marie Brett and art therapists Ed Kuczaj and John McHarg

Building on the Smiling Dog Collective’s year-long multidisciplinary research project and using research gathered from diverse field inputs, this workshop will explore the roles and relationships between artists and art therapists working in healthcare settings: similarities, differences, and cross-platform potential.

WORKSHOP 4.
Resonate: A Singing for Wellbeing Model
Facilitated by Embrace Music: musicians Sadhbh O’Sullivan and Sharon Murphy

During this practical workshop, participants will experience elements of Embrace Music’s Resonate: singing for wellbeing model, gaining insights into the methodologies that underpin the design and delivery of a session.

WORKSHOP 5.
Journeys beyond the room
Facilitated by storyteller Joe Brennan

Gain insight into Joe Brennan’s storytelling practice through live storytelling, skill-building, and the opportunity to share a story yourself. Joe will discuss his methodology, offer guidance on story selection, and reflect on the impact of storytelling in health settings. His person-centred approach creates space for reflection, imagination, and meaningful connection, leaving participants enriched and inspired.

Banner image credits: Photo 1: John Howard; Photos 2 & 4: DGM Photographic. Photos 3 & 5 John Daly. Photos 6, 7 & 8: Keith Currams

Additional info:

About Keynote Speaker Tony Bates

Dr Tony Bates was Head of the Dept of Psychology for 30 years at St James’ Hospital Dublin. Following psychotherapy training at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Oxford, he established the MSc in Cognitive Psychotherapy at Trinity College Dublin. In 2006, he created Jigsaw, The National Centre for Youth Mental Health. He trained as a mindfulness teacher at the University of Wales, Bangor, in 2001 and is patron of the Mindfulness Teachers Association of Ireland. His memoir Breaking the Heart Open: The shaping of a psychologist, was published in 2023. Tony lives on a headland in north Sligo, where he writes, consults and looks after a large garden with hens, giant Flemish rabbits, cats and wild birds. He is married to Ursula, and is father of three and grandfather of five.

Image credits: John Howard

Réalta is the national resource organisation dedicated to strengthening and advancing Arts + Health in Ireland. Réalta encompasses artsandhealth.ie, an independent information hub and the extensive Waterford Healing Arts programme. Arts + Health: Check Up Check In is funded by the Arts Council and the HSE and is supported in 2025 by Offaly County Council Arts Office and Esker Arts.

Arts and health programmes comprise a range of arts experiences, presented in healthcare settings, for the benefit of health service users, healthcare staff and artists. This expanding field of work fosters creativity, wellbeing and access to the arts and is based on partnership between the artists, arts organisations and those working in healthcare and/or the wider community. Further information about all aspects of arts and health work is available on www.artsandhealth.ie