Territory and diversity: paths of Occupational Therapy in art and culture experiences

This article presents a view of territorial actions marked by social movements related to the de-institutionalization of insanity and the development of rights of physically-and mentally handicapped people, which configures a new field of occupational therapy practices oriented towards the complex demands of assisted population and targeted on increasing sociocultural participation. Those are actions and strategies, implemented by the participants of the Laboratory of Studies and Research Art, Body and Occupational Therapy of the University of São Paulo, which are articulated with the public policies of mental health, humanization and culture set up in in Brazil as of 2000. They involve teaching, research and extension; contribute to the quality of services offered to the community and strengthen the assistance and social participation networks. The main follow up and interventions assessment methods are related to qualitative research, development of an intensive reflection in that seek to build up local knowledge of occupational therapy guided by creative actions and by crossed clinical, artistic and cultural references. The projects implemented have broaden the access of the population assisted to artistic and cultural experiments in the territory, they have contributed to the construction of life policies enabling ways of participation, of living together and subjectivity producing. Thus, sociocultural technologies are configured in agreement with the importance of strengthening and supporting new proposals for populations expropriated from their life networks, supported by significant intervention of occupational therapists