Mike White: archives

The archive contains various materials relating to Mike White's work for Arts for Health while at Gateshead Council (1989-2000) and Durham University (2001-2014). These are personal papers related Mike's work with various projects, committees, forums and funding applications, including correspondence, grey literature, reports and promotional materials.

Mike worked closely with Arts for Health, on various projects, in his capacity as Assistant Director Arts at Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council (1988-2000) and Director of Projects at the Centre for Medical Humanities (CMH), University of Durham (2000-2008). He was also a research fellow of St Chad's College in Durham. He was involved in different community projects as well as in interdisciplinary research and evaluation, and commissioning audits and literature reviews of arts in health for Government agencies. His projects also included public art commissions, such as being part of the planning of the Angel of the North in Gateshead.

As a result of his fellowship of the UK's National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA), researching community-based arts in health, he wrote a book about arts and health called 'Arts Development in Community Health: A Social Tonic' (Radcliffe Publishing, 2009). The archive contains a draft of this book, alongside numerous articles and presentations. He was the recipient of the first Healthway (Australia) International Fellowship in Arts and Health in 2007, and in 2010 he was given the Royal Society for Public Health award for outstanding contribution to arts in health research and practice.

He retired in 2014 due to advanced prostate cancer and died in Gateshead on 4 June 2015. He wrote a diary ('Chalkie's Demon Diary') about his illness: https://demondiary.wordpress.com.

WORK HISTORY
2000 - 2008 Director of Projects - Centre for Medical Humanities (CMH), University of Durham
2000 - 2014 Fellow, Chad's College
1988 - 2000 Assistant Director Arts - Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council
1985 - 1988 Development Director - Welfare State International (Theatre Company)
1983 - 1984 Publicity Officer - Artsline, London
1981 - 1983 International Music Festival Organiser - WOMAD, Bristol
1978 - 1980 Lecturer in Communications, Dept. of Business Studies - Stockport College of Technology
EDUCATION
1973 - 1978 Exeter College, University of Oxford
1976 BA Hons. 2/1 English
1978 M. Phil. English Literature
1981 MA

1988-2009

18 boxes, 1 outsize item

The arrangement and file names reflect those given by Mike White, and have been retained in the alphabetical order in which they were filed.

17 August 2015

Mike worked closely with Arts for Health, on various projects, in his capacity as Assistant Director Arts at Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council (1988-2000) and Director of Projects at the Centre for Medical Humanities (CMH), University of Durham (2000-2008).

Part of the Arts for Health collection (ref: ART).

This collection has been catalogued and is available to library members. Some items have access restrictions which are explained in the item-level catalogue records.

A number of Arts and Health organisations deposited their collections at Manchester Metropolitan University to form what was known as the Arts for Health archive. In 2015, these papers were donated to Wellcome Library and subsequently divided into the following collections, with a unifying 'ART' prefix in the reference number. These collections are in the process of being catalogued; search the archives catalogue using the collection reference number for further information.

Arts for Health archive: the main organisational archive of Arts for Health; "ART/AFH".

Healing Arts, Isle of Wight archive: Papers of Healing Arts, Isle of Wight from its establishment in 1984 up to 2012; "ART/IOW"..

Mike White archive: Papers relating to Mike White's work for Arts for Health while at Gateshead Council and Durham University; "ART/MIW"

Langley Brown archive: Papers relating to Langley Brown's work for Manchester Hospital Arts (now Lime), and for Start (Sheltered Training in the Arts); "ART/LAB".

Stockport Arts and Health archive: Papers of Stockport Arts and Health, 1990-2008; "ART/SAH".

Aiden Shingler archive: Papers of Aiden Shingler, relating to his work with Arts for Health; "ART/ASH"..

Graham Cooper archive: Cooper's working notes and research folders for projects on effects of hospital architecture on patient wellbeing and care; "ART/COO".

Lime Arts archive: Papers of Lime Arts, 1973-2007; "ART/LIM".

Artlink West Yorkshire: Organisational records, 1984-2010, "ART/AWY".

In addition, some grey literature and publications have been added to the Library's holdings, and can be searched for in the Library catalogue by searching "Donor: Arts for Health"