Medicine Men / The Art of Health

Christopher Bailey is the Art & Health lead at the World Health Organisation, based in in Geneva, Switzerland. His newly established program looks at the research agenda around the health benefits of the arts, in everyday life as well as an instrument in the field. Educated at Columbia and Oxford Universities, as well at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, before entering Global Health and Philanthropy, Bailey was a professional actor and playwright. He is presently engaged heavily in using the arts in the COVID-19 global response.

Ahmed Mater trained as a community doctor on the Saudi/Yemeni border, before rising to become one of the most significant Arab artists of his generation. He uses photography, film, sculpture and performance to map, document and analyze rapid cultural developments, considering their psychological impact on the individual, the community, urban environments and society at large.

Chip Thomas, aka “jetsonorama” is a photographer, public artist, activist and physician who has been working on the Navajo Nation since 1987. Chip grew up in North Carolina, and first moved to the Diné Nation in 1981 to repay a National Health Service Corps scholarship by volunteering his skills in a community with limited health care. Today, his public-art installations - known as the Painted Desert Project – are bolstering the community through murals across the Navajo Nation.

A medical doctor with a parallel career as a cultural worker, Kōan Jeff Baysa has worked as a physician in conflict zones abroad and curates exhibitions globally. He designs projects that mashup ostensibly disparate subjects and researches the cultural constructs of disease and the role of the olfactory sense in memory disorders.