Why choose the School of Arts and Creative Industries
This course is interdisciplinary and inclusive, welcoming artists, health practitioners, community workers and researchers into a shared creative ecosystem.
Led by experienced practitioners – learn from artists and facilitators working at the intersection of health, creativity and social change.
Our real-world partnerships with organisations such as Mind, Sue Ryder and Take heART at Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust invite you to test your ideas in live settings.
About the course
Creative Health is an emerging field – and this course places you at its evolving centre.
This pioneering MA invites artists, practitioners and health innovators to explore how creativity can be a catalyst for individual, social and systemic wellbeing. Rooted in embodied, ensemble and reflective practices, the course creates space for enquiry, collaboration and courageous imagination.
Drawing from performing arts, somatic practices, socially engaged arts and creative research, you’ll learn how to design, deliver and critically reflect on creative health interventions in real-world contexts.
Here, we aim to support you to shape the field with integrity, curiosity and presence.
For further information, contact Amalia Garcia at amalia.garcia@beds.ac.uk
Course endorsement
This MA reflects national priorities for creative health education, aligning with NHS and Arts Council strategies.
Facilities and specialist equipment
Our vibrant campus environment supports both quiet reflection and dynamic creative exchange. Facilities include:
- Professional studio spaces
- Professional theatre
- Studio theatre
- Access to specialist equipment for performance, sound and visual work
Industry links
Our partnerships with organisations such as Mind, Sue Ryder and Take heART at Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust give you opportunities to test your ideas in real-world settings. You also become part of regional and national creative health networks, opening doors to collaborations and employment.
Your student experience
This is a course where your presence matters – we work as an ensemble.
Practice is at the heart of the course, with sessions grounded in movement, dialogue and voice, creative enquiry and research. We create space for reflection and rigour while blending academic depth with personal and collective enquiry.
Teaching unfolds through immersive retreat-style weekends every three to four weeks, giving time and space to arrive fully, connect deeply and let practice breathe. Between gatherings, podcast-style lectures and creative tasks keep the learning alive in everyday settings and fit flexibly around your life.
Small cohorts, experienced practitioners and a culture of care create a learning community that is both rigorous and nourishing, supporting you to grow your practice with depth and integrity.
Course Leader - Amalia Garcia
Amalia is a performance artist, movement facilitator and academic, interested in the embodied processes that shape movement-based dance-theatre and creative health practices. She is also a qualified IFS - Internal Family Systems practitioner, and her work integrates enquiries from both artistic and therapeutic fields through practice-based research.
What will you study?
Across the course, you immerse yourself in five key strands.
Creative Health in Context – understand the social, cultural and political landscape of creative health, and your place within it.
Embodied Creative Health – explore somatic and performance practices (such as Authentic Movement, contact improvisation and the Feldenkrais method) as tools for creative facilitation and wellbeing.
Creative Enquiry and Impact – learn research methods that are rigorous, relational and imaginative to evidence and communicate impact.
Applied Creative Health – collaborate with partners to design and deliver creative health projects in real-world settings, developing your capacity to work ethically and creatively with communities.
Final Project – bring together your learning through a major independent project. You will deepen your practice-as-research and have the opportunity to present your work at a Creative Health Symposium, sharing your contribution with peers, partners and wider networks.
How will you be assessed?
We work as an ensemble of learners, valuing lived experience alongside academic knowledge.
Assessment is through practical projects, written reflections and presentations - all designed to nurture your authentic voice.
Careers
This course will strengthen your capacity to lead creative health projects, shape policy conversations or deepen your existing practice with new frameworks and skills.
Graduates will be equipped to work in a rapidly growing field, with opportunities across a wide range of settings – from hospitals, hospices and community projects, to arts organisations, research contexts and higher education.
Entry Requirements
Fees for this course
UK
The full-time standard fee for a taught Master's degree for the Academic Year 2025/26 is £10,000 per year. You can apply for a loan from the Government to help pay for your tuition fees and living costs. Visit www.gov.uk/postgraduate-loan
Alternatively if you have any questions around fees and funding, please email admission@beds.ac.uk
International 2024/25
The full-time standard fee for a taught Master's degree for the Academic Year 2025/26 is £16,900
If you have any questions around fees and funding, please email international@beds.ac.uk