A decade of creative occupation: The production of a youth arts archive in a hospital site

This paper discusses creative occupation as a valid and empowering response to chronic illness and hospitalisation. Creative expression may be particularly necessary for humans to survive and flourish in potentially alienating environments such as hospitals. The Youth Arts Program has evolved to meet the health and maturational needs of young people in an Australian hospital. This innovative program has been archived to create a permanent record of occupational engagement. The space and place dimensions of creative occupation emerge as recurring themes that are significant to participants in the program. Archives provide a basis for explaining the theory and practice of those non traditional approaches that are relevant to occupational science. The preservation of source materials enables the beginnings of cultural transformation to be traced. Without the existence of permanent records, innovative programs too often become silent history.