Why do we need art?

Every April 15th, coinciding with Leonardo da Vinci's birthday, World Art Day is celebrated to promote the development, dissemination, and promotion of art and creative activity worldwide. Da Vinci is a symbol of peace, freedom of expression, tolerance, fraternity, and multiculturalism—values that remain highly relevant in today's society.

Art is creativity. It is innovation and diversity. It is the exchange of knowledge and dialogue. It is democracy and transformation. It is identity and belonging. And for all these reasons, art holds the key to leading societies to become more compassionate, inclusive, and empowered.

People who use mental health services and artists speak to us about this empowerment, well-being, communication, and identity, answering the question: Why do we need art?

Why do we need art? Ugh, what a question. I can tell you why I need it: to make me laugh when I'm sad, to dream while I'm awake, to cry with emotion. To feel that the artist has created a work by bringing it to life in your mind and to feel connected to them and to others. To awaken a dormant smile. To provoke a joyful look. To simply pass the time. To feel immortal. To express feelings. To explain longings or simply as a way of life.

We need art as a means of expression and communication

• "Sometimes it can serve to express what we are not capable of expressing with words."
• "To express your inner world."
• "Because we need moments to be silent and look beyond, out to sea, to discover beauty in all its intensity, to admire it and contemplate the light that rises above the darkness, even though the darkness remains in the background and sometimes comes knocking at the door. It is the canvas that hides that world that I cannot describe in words."
• "I am a person of few words, and while I am doing the workshop I relax and it helps me to open up to my colleagues and explain to them what I think at that moment."
• "Art is magic. Magic is within us. But we need to know through what medium we want to share it and show it to the world."

We need art as a way of understanding the world

• "Because it makes us see the world through a prism that reinterprets our senses and makes us accomplices, even if we are unaware of the rhythm, we let ourselves be carried away by the senses."

We need art as a tool for our emotional and spiritual well-being

• "To disconnect the mind from bad thoughts and fill it with imagination."
• "Because art liberates."
• "For a moment, art takes me off the tightrope and, in so many walks on the beach looking for the eroded colored crystals to make my sculptures, I rehearse the long road I travel to 'return home'."
• "To feel tranquility and inner peace."
• "Because art is life."
• "To harmonize souls."

We need art as a means of denunciation, criticism, and social transformation

• "It's a weapon to raise awareness among the people."
• "To understand, to explain and express, to shake consciences."
• "To survive, to enrich the soul, to make the species evolve."
• "Art is expression. Art is critical language, the reaction to what we breathe in our society."

We need art as self-knowledge, identity, reaffirmation, and empowerment.

• "Because we cannot fail to show the bravery and courage that sometimes hides in fragility and powerlessness, and it is through theater that I find a way to tell myself again: it was necessary to look in the mirror and contemplate my image once and for all, to tell myself who I am, to recognize what I have been through and who I do not want to be. I need to go on stage and show the best and worst of myself in order to be who I want to be."
• "Art is a way of 'SKA-P', and we all need to be free at some point."

*With the participation of users of the Hospital Sant Joan de Déu Barcelona (Mental Health Area), the Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu (Salut Mental Brians 2, Specialized Service in Intensive Psychiatric Rehabilitation (SERPI), Program of care for people with mental problems and in situations of serious social vulnerability of Prat de Llobregat, Community rehabilitation services of Viladecans, El Prat de Llobregat, Cornellà de Llobregat y Garraf and the Els Til·lers Juvenile Justice Therapeutic Unit), of Sant Joan de Déu Serveis Socials (Centre residential d'inclusió de l'Hort de la Vila), Sant Joan de Déu-Terres de Lleida (Centre Assistencial d'Almacelles - Intellectual Disability, SJD Hospital of Lleida and Llar Residencial Acadèmia Mariana).