On the 5th of June, the EU funded Healing Nature project (project number 101173267 crea-cult-2024-coop) held the Living Murals workshop in partnership with Dona Estefânia Children’s Hospital. The workshops were led by Lusófona professors Hugo Barata, João Cabral, and Natalie Woolf and assisted by MA students: Paulo Diogo Simão (Animation Arts) and Jessica Fraude,(Communication Design). The workshops were designed to show the health professionals, children and parents how the interaction with the new animated elements of the murals work; the murals were installed by the project in December. To view the animation, the murals trigger augmented reality technology through the Artivive platform, displaying animations designed by the participating institutions and allowing murals to “come to life” without the need of an additional application. The workshops were attended by 53 people, and concluded with a session of shadow theatre using figures created by the children and their guardians.

The Healing Nature project is led in Portugal by Natalie Woolf (CICANT), in collaboration with Pedro Serrazina from Animation, and psychology partners Ana Beato, Ana Loureiro and Isabel Santos from HEI-Lab. The project has entered its final phase, bringing together an innovative combination of art, animation and augmented reality within hospital spaces in Portugal, Croatia and Bulgaria with the project partners: the Croatian Association of Fine Artists (HDLU) and the New Bulgarian University. More information about the project can be found here.