Jefferson Center of Immersive Arts for Health
A collaborative platform integrating dynamic and interactive design technologies with user experience to study the impact of immersive art and design on healing and neurodiversity.
The Jefferson Center of Immersive Arts for Health (JCIAH) is a cross-disciplinary group of researchers, clinicians, and designers that formulates questions, designs interactions, develops methodologies, and collects data to test the impact of immersive art. A cross-disciplinary curriculum combines arts, technology, science, and medicine for academic purposes, fostering student collaboration to solve complex problems.
In academia and even in professional practice, research and design typically operate independently. JCIAH bridges the Jefferson Center City medical campus, the Jefferson East Falls design campus, and leading institutions in the field, fostering collaborations that combine diverse and complex ideas to discover innovative solutions for improving well-being.
Research shows art can positively impact human health, specifically in healthcare environments. Most research focuses on static art: paintings, prints, or sculptures. At Jefferson, we are at the forefront of studying how immersive experiences can impact well-being with new media and dynamic art.
The Jefferson Center for Immersive Arts in Health has brought together a diverse team from Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health, including artists, designers, researchers, and clinicians. This team develops and tests prototypes and interactive experiences, researches the impact of immersive art, and makes recommendations for its implementation.
The Jefferson Center of Immersive Arts for Health seeks strategic academic partners for collaborative projects in curriculum building, resource sharing, and intra-university student projects and competitions.
Programs & Activities
The Jefferson Center for Immersive Arts in Health has created cross-disciplinary courses focusing on the impact of immersive art on health, open dialogue across fields, and offers research opportunities for graduate and PhD-level students across Jefferson. We have developed a cross-disciplinary curriculum on the history, design, and impact of Arts in Health, Lighting and Health, and Immersive Arts and Health. We are initiating research and generating and testing creative solutions. We have collaborated with other institutions in interactive and lighting design, as well as in research, to create intra-university collaborations and student competitions.
Our first dedicated course, Health and the Art Experience, ran in Spring 2022. The course Lighting as Public Experience has offered students the opportunity to design and test their work with a wide range of participants and to build on the results year after year.