Earlier this year, the Health Transformation Lab delivered ‘Collab/Oration in Conversation: Influencing Health Systems Through Creative Practice’, exploring the critical relationship between storytelling, creativity and lived experience as lenses for reimagining health systems, care models and relationships. Insights from this project can be found in Collab/Oration in Conversation: Insights report.
Made possible by the RMIT’s Enabling Impact Platform (EIP) 2024 Thought Leadership grant, the project builds on the success of the inaugural Writing the Future of Health Fellowship developed through RMIT’s Health Transformation Lab to investigate the role of creative practice and imagination in health systems change. The resulting work ‘Collab/Oration’ (now Raging Grace, Puncher and Wattman 2024), was produced by inaugural Fellow and acclaimed poet and essayist, Andy Jackson, and a collective of 22 writers with disability.
To extend the impact and themes of this work, the Collab/Oration in Conversation project was co-designed with Andy Jackson, and a collective of writers with lived-experience of disability, neurodivergence and chronic illness, to further examine the role of lived experience and creative practice in shaping more inclusive futures.
“I have a very strong sense that disabled people and immuno-compromised people are experts in their own lives and have a critical role to play in finding solutions to the problems they come up against.” – Andy Jackson, RMIT News
The interactive event held in February 2025, featured a showcase of Raging Grace, expert panel discussion and collaborative writing experience, offering participants a unique opportunity for participants to creatively experience core themes in real-time, as they were explored by expert panel and artists.
Bringing together creatives, social and healthcare workers, innovators and policy makers, this project highlighted the importance personal experience as not only intrinsic to creative expression but also essential to conversations about systemic change in healthcare, and how shape futures in health – in ways that centre diversity, humanity and self-determination.
Insights, provocations and learnings from this project can be found in the Collab/Oration in Conversation: Insights report.
Included in this report:
- Key insights for future health and care model design, with examples of existing practice
- Reflections and insights from expert panel and creative engagements
- Learnings and practical guidance on the creation of safe and inclusive spaces, from the consultation process with lived experience participants
Voices from the room:
“I was really inspired by the process and methodologies of the broader project – but also the questions it posed” – event participant
“This event has inspired me to start creative writing in my teaching of medicine students” – event participant
“This event has made me see real possibilities for creative expression and [related] interactions to form more current and relevant health policy” – event participant
“The best thing about the Collab/Oration collective was that we were all intersectional, and the space that was made to honour this diversity and intersectionality.” – writer and panellist