Abstract

Could Turin be a lab of Health and Culture? Extended welfare aims at building synergic action of social and psychophysical empowerment, with culture as a basis for reducing social discomfort and creating forms of civic participation. Given the potential role of culture and the arts in a medical and health context, a subsidiary welfare can favor civil emancipation, thanks to the widespread development of an individual and social well-being through the experience of beauty. Artistic transfiguration allows both to create inclusion tools and to elaborate the aesthetic transposition of the negative experiences of people at risk, thus preventing cognitive decline. The case of the Pole of irregular art in Turin is a significant experience which promotes plural art, in order to enhance the cognitive excellence of disadvantaged people, as well as to promote their aesthetic potential by offering them a dynamic interaction with official artists.