The DRAC, the Region, the ARS and the AP-HM are continuing their support for culture in healthcare settings via a new 2025-2028 agreement.
The Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs (DRAC), the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Region, the Regional Health Agency (ARS) and Assistance Publique – Marseille Hospitals (AP-HM) have formalized the renewal of their common commitment to the program “Culture and Health”. A new agreement of objectives for the period 2025-2028 was signed, consolidating an ambitious policy aimed at sustainably integrating the artistic presence at the heart of the region’s health, medico-social and social establishments.
Initiated at the national level in 1999, this system aims to make art and culture accessible to patients, their loved ones and healthcare staff, helping to break isolation and promote each individual. It supports long-term projects, such as artist residencies or cooperation between cultural and medical structures.
A lasting financial and structural commitment
To carry out this mission, the partners are jointly mobilizing an envelope of €410,000 for each of the years 2025 and 2026. This budget is divided between the DRAC (€160,000), the ARS (€160,000) and the Region (€90,000). €). The success of the program can already be measured by the attractiveness of the calls for projects: 43 initiatives were selected in 2025 and 39 in 2026, covering the six departments of the region. In total, more than 10,000 beneficiaries – patients, residents, caregivers and professionals – are directly affected by these actions.
The report for the year 2025, available online, details the richness and diversity of the projects financed.
Art as complementary care
Partner institutions share a common vision of culture as an essential vector of well-being and social cohesion, particularly in healthcare environments.
« In large cities or more isolated areas, artistic residencies in healthy environments illustrate a strong conviction: to create is also to take care; art therefore has its place where care is given », indicates the DRAC.
« With this system, the South Region is choosing a culture accessible to all, including in places of care and support. », underlines the Southern Region, affirming that « culture is an essential lever of social cohesion and territorial equality ».
An opinion shared by Yann Bubien, general director of ARS Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.
« Through this program, everyone was able to realize the richness of the dialogue between culture and health. By making people vibrate, dream, and think differently, the works have enlivened the places of care », supports Yann Bubien.
The AP-HM, a driving partner at the heart of the system
Public Assistance – Marseille Hospitals plays a central role in the deployment of this policy. Strongly involved, the institution saw seven of its projects selected in 2025 and six for the year 2026. The AP-HM has developed its own program, “Hospitality journey”which co-constructs unique artistic actions with artists, cultural partners and hospital staff. In 2025, it collaborated with around thirty cultural partners and around forty healthcare services.
« These contribute in particular to improving reception, living and working conditions for hospital residents (patients, visitors, staff), to experimenting with new forms of relationships, sharing and transmission between art, creation, the hospital and society. », explains the AP-HM.
Concrete projects throughout the territory
The strength of the program “Culture and Health” resides in the realization of varied projects which touch all artistic disciplines and all regional geographies. Among the 2025 initiatives, we can cite the circus project led by the Archaos center at the Salvator Hospital in Marseille, or the photography workshop “Natural Histories” proposed by the Domaine du Rayol, garden located in the town of Rayol-Canadel-sur-Mer, within the Dame Jean Itard establishment. In the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Compagnie Chabraque brought together theater and digital arts at the Pierre Groues Hospital Center, illustrating the program’s capacity to irrigate the entire territory, including the most rural areas. These projects demonstrate a growing interest among artists in the relationship between art and care, and a shared desire to make culture a lever for innovation in the field of health.
via Presse Agence (edited from a press release transmitted to the editor).
