Professor Tim Prentki (Winchester, UK) is well known as an applied performance and cofounder of the theatre and development programme at Winchester University, subjects about which he has published many books. He approaches applied art from multiple perspectives (politics, education) with a strong foundation in the humanities. He is well aware that over the past few decades social scientists have been trying to capture the value or social impact of community art with surveys and statistics. While some of this work has led to useful insights, Tim believes that recent research in neuroscience and neuropsychology may be more promising. It points to the importance of empathy for building kinder less divided societies and suggests that face-to-face participatory artistic processes can actually help to increase it.