Monday 26 August 2019

A Preconference Conversation with Keynote Presenter Dr. Carol Ryff and Moderator Dick Averns

Dr. Carol D. Ryff will be delivering the opening keynote address, “Bridging the Museum Experience to Well-being and Health,” at the Alberta Museums Association 2019 Conference. In advance of the conference, Dr. Ryff sat down with Dick Averns, artist and engagement coordinator with CARFAC Alberta, for an interview. 


Averns: Thanks for sharing some insight into your work, Carol, on the Conference theme, As a Whole: Well-being, Health, and Museums. So, how does your work and research promote health and well-being, and how do you see museums as relevant?

Ryff: For the last thirty years, my research has addressed three main questions: What is human well-being? How can we measure it? And how does it matter for health? My past research has not explicitly linked museum experiences to health and well-being, although I am an advocate for work in that direction. I’m especially interested in how partaking of museums might impact people’s sense that their lives have meaning, purpose, and direction, as well as their sense that they are experiencing personal growth over time.