Modern communities face unprecedented levels of chronic stress, social isolation, and mental health challenges. Traditional healthcare systems often focus exclusively on symptom management, leaving little room to address the deeper environmental and cultural roots of human wellness. At the same time, practitioners in the arts, somatic disciplines, and ecological sciences frequently work in silos. This fragmentation prevents communities from accessing holistic, grassroots practices that build long-term resilience and emotional vitality.
Intercultural Roots tackles this disconnection by bridging artistic practice, ecological awareness, and public health. Guided by a "grove of oneness" philosophy, the organization unites international scholars, artists, and wellness practitioners to deliver creative health initiatives, somatic programs, and community-led wellness labs. In this executive Q&A, Founding Executive Director Dr. Alex Boyd discusses the power of embodied research, the therapeutic role of nature, and how creative expression fosters lasting public well-being.
Q: Intercultural Roots approaches wellness through the concept of a "grove of oneness." What disconnect in modern public health inspired you to bring artists, scholars, and somatic practitioners together into a shared ecosystem?
Dr. Alex Boyd: My PhD research in performance studies and critical education explored how we learn through traditional embodied knowledge and practice that is guided by thousands of years of wisdom culture. It led me to conceive and co-found the IFTR Embodied Research Working Group, which I now co-convene. Through that community, I founded and co-created Intercultural Roots and, subsequently, EcoGPX.
The disconnect I see is that health, education, the arts and technology often sit in separate compartments, while peoples lived experience connect them. For me, a ‘grove of oneness’ means bringing those experiences into ecological conversation, with room for collaborative difference. The phrase came from discovering a banyan tree in Hawaiʻi. We want people to be free to share what they know and salutogenically help shape the conditions that support wellbeing.
Q: Your background blends performance studies, Daoist embodied culture, and traditional knowledge systems. How do practices like breathwork and mindful movement translate into accessible wellness tools for local communities?
Dr. Alex Boyd: My foundation is traditional eco-embodied practice, particularly from a Chinese Daoist perspective and developed through international travel, practice as research, and years of teaching other practitioners in applied arts for community health, wellbeing and positive social change. That experience taught me to begin with myself, as Paulo Freire refers to as ‘the oppressor within’, and it’s a work in progress.
An invitation might be as simple as noticing the support beneath the body, releasing unnecessary tension during a movement, or noticing a change in our rhythm of breathing. Someone can participate seated, move gently, or simply observe or become more attentive to themselves and their surroundings. We want people to become curious and discover something useful they can transfer into their everyday life. Making space for choice is an important part of making a practice accessible and for embodying a practice and its principles over time.
Q: You place a strong emphasis on "eco-somatic" work that reconnects people directly with nature. Why is deepening our relationship with the natural environment so essential for both personal healing and environmental stewardship?
Dr. Alex Boyd: Being with and walking on the Yorkshire moors where I live is one of the simplest ways I make space to notice the world around me. We are nature and eco-embodied practice explores this reciprocal relationship through the body: listening, grounding, presencing and paying attention to and being-in-the-now. This relates to our collective consciousness and relational connections. By appreciating the natural harmonies around us we can perhaps begin to avoid living with volatile extremes in ourselves.
Through Human-Nature Connect and my wider work, I’m interested in how a familiar place can become somewhere we feel connected and involved. A shared walk, sound or story can open that conversation and realisation. For me, care works both ways: if a place supports us, how can we support it? That might begin with a community garden or helping care for a local waterway. We must also tend to our own needs and contentfulness.
Q: Creative health initiatives often struggle to gain recognition alongside clinical healthcare models. What evidence have you seen that demonstrates the tangible public health impact of participatory arts and creative inquiry?
Dr. Alex Boyd: I’m interested in changes people recognise in their own lives: feeling less isolated, gaining confidence, or finding a place where they belong. In the Coventry EcoGPX project I helped develop, Dr Jo Scott’s evaluation documented those kinds of experiences alongside new connections between people and local places.
These findings matter, and I feel help create the conditions where healing and wellbeing can flourish. The WHO arts and health review gives us a wide research picture. Intercultural Roots’ approach is to bring that evidence together with careful listening and evaluated response, that asks communities what meaningful change looks and feels like to them. That keeps the work both human and locally accountable.
Q: Intercultural Roots operates both localized community programs and global digital collaborations. How do you maintain authentic, place-based connections while supporting an international network of practitioners?
Dr. Alex Boyd: We start with the people who know a place. My international teaching and research have taught me that a practice makes sense locally through its relationships, history, culture and ethics. Good liberatory exchange requires time, and respect for that context and not always doing things just because they’ve always been done in that way. Traditional knowledge is useful if the way it is applied remains relevant to people’s needs today and in the future.
My computing and systems engineering background also helps shape how I approach this. With PLACES by EcoGPX, we are interested how local stories and creative prompts can help people explore their surroundings and contribute their own perspectives. Online networks make exchange possible and accessible across distance, while local practitioners sustain relationships on the ground. If a technology can help facilitate those connections and help them to grow, and leave people with meaningful choices, then that’s fabulous – but we do need cautioun in not being led by a new technology or feature, but rather by what our community needs and wants.
Q: Looking ahead, how do you see the creative health movement evolving to address systemic inequalities and emerging social pressures?
Dr. Alex Boyd: My work in critical education keeps bringing me back to who gets to participate and decide. I want creative health to become something people can depend on in everyday community life and this includes agency for how they want their environment to be. With experience of fundraising and organisational development, it makes me aware that this kind of collaborative work needs sustained resourcing, fair pay for the people doing the facilitation work and practical access to support and guidance.
There are also new questions about AI and digital life. Through The Turing Way Practitioners Hub and EcoGPX, we’ve been exploring who benefits from technology and how we protect consent and creative ownership. How communities make decisions and strengthen their ability to care for one another and the places they live feels important right now.
Integrating arts, culture, and nature into community health models creates powerful pathways for collective recovery. When individuals engage in embodied movement, creative exploration, and ecological mindfulness, they build internal resources that clinical treatments alone cannot provide. Creating dedicated spaces where diverse practitioners can exchange knowledge ensures that grassroots wellness strategies remain innovative and inclusive.
The future of public health depends on treating wellness as an interconnected, community-wide endeavor rather than an individual burden. Organizations that champion creative inquiry and ecological awareness will remain essential in dismantling health disparities and building sustainable social fabric. Through its collaborative network and dedicated programs, Intercultural Roots offers a transformative framework for human and planetary well-being.
To learn more visit https://www.interculturalroots.org/