Mike White writes: In June, the Centre for Medical Humanities is convening a ‘critical mass’ meeting in Durham of its international partners in community-based arts in health. Leading practitioners and researchers in this field are coming from United States, Australia, South Africa and Ireland to reflect on shared issues in applying arts practice to healthcare and medicine and to explore how meaningful international research collaborations can be developed that also involve local communities. The event is supported by Wellcome Trust and Arts Council England and, after a programme of focussed discussion in Durham, consultative forums with North of England organisations delivering arts in health work are to be held in South Shields (27 June) and Manchester (30 June). There will be a full blog account later of the ‘critical mass’ gathering, the regional forums and follow-up events.