A collaboration between Creative Aging International and The Global Brain Health Institute at Trinity College Dublin, supporters include the Creative Ireland programme. It has rapidly achieved local and international significance with entertaining examinations of how brain science and creativity collide.

The first Creative Brain Week hosted 120 presenters articulating a world of concern and opportunity.  It took place as the global Covid-19 pandemic stuttered towards a “new normal” with “build back better” a popular phrase. The background to the second the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

Perhaps it was these two moments that encouraged reflection at Creative Brain Week 23 on the nature of care systems, their culture, and a long term considerations.

If we inherit the dreams of our grandparents made real as institutions, or codified as culture, can we recognise when the issues they dreamt of have changed? How can we build our own dreams?

A newly published book, Creative Brain Week – Knowledge Making, brings these ideas to print.

Scientists show how conflict, as a root cause for ill health, applies at an individual as well as a societal level.

Experts in creative intervention show how, over decades, arts, craft and creative practices have had multiple benefits.

The book looks at the role hope plays in healthcare. At health and care systems that begin not in bio-medical systems, but in the cultural realm. It explores the role of creativity in the earliest stages of brain development and the final stages of life.

You can download a copy of Creative Brain Week – Knowledge Making in English, Irish, Spanish and Portugese

In November 2023 this publication was the focus of discussion by experts from across the Island of Ireland at The Mac Belfast. People across disciplines from all parts of the Island were in dialogue with international counterparts.

In turn this informed Creative Brain Week 2024’s themes of  “Attention. Connection. Love (and when it’s not enough?)”.