Activating Empathy Through Art in Cancer Communities.

Background: The Aesthetics of Health (AOH) undergraduate visual art studies course at the University of Texas at Austin aimed to enhance art students' awareness of cancer's impact not only medically but also socially, emotionally, financially, and spiritually and to examine how this experience might impact students' artwork, capacity for empathy, and connection to audience.

Methods: During the spring 2021 semester, the AOH course instructors employed assorted pedagogical methods, including art, illness narrative, and community engagement, in special sessions led by professors, community practice artists, and cancer experts, respectively, as well as oral storytelling by those with lived experience of cancer (ie, cancer patients, posttreatment survivors, and loved ones). For the course's final project, the 15 student-artists created self-selected media works combining health and activism and displayed them in public spaces, including online.