“What if we considered a healthy imagination vital to our health?” A question asked by Rob Hopkins, environmentalist and author, at a seminar I attended five days pre-lockdown. Here we are now five days post-lockdown and social media is groaning under the weight of memes, video clips and images we are pinging backwards and forwards across the digital networks to keep our spirits up. We need alternatives to our present situation- whether those alternatives are pure escapism, a different perspective or the space to imagine a healthy future. These images, music, video clips, stories and poetry all offer us this space. They are a tonic for the heightened anxiety that has moved unwelcome into our homes threatening not just our physical health, but our mental health also. They are a tonic for our imagination.

Believing so wholeheartedly in the importance of this tonic, we have an entire Department dedicated to studying it in CIT Crawford – Arts in Health & Education. The arts can support us, whether that is singing across the street to our neighbours,  laughing over a meme, drawing a picture, escaping into a story or being carried away by a piece of music. Now more than ever we need to nurture our imagination, our capacity to picture alternatives.

The Creativity Tonic aims to provide a hub for many of the creative and mindful resources that people are sharing for these challenging times. We will keep adding to it as we come across them. Drink deeply and share the tonic with others.

– Louise Foott
Department Head
CIT Crawford – Arts in Health & Education