Art in health and identity: visual narratives of older Chinese immigrants to New Zealand

Abstract

This paper explores older Chinese immigrants visual narratives on the value and impact of paintings beyond aesthetic merit and the role art plays in their health, wellbeing and identity construction. Immigration to a new culture in old age gives rise to experiences of biographical disruption and status-discrepancy, which often invokes isolation, anxiety, and a sense of dislocation and loss. Findings reveal that art-making aids the participants in addressing biographical disruption and status-discrepancy and appreciating the richness of multiplicities of the self. Art also positively influences the participants health and wellbeing when they live in a new culture in their later lives.