Engaged Beings
Over the last five years, Brigstow has brought together well over a hundred new diverse research teams that span disciplines and include academics, artists and creative technologists and community leaders to name just a few. All of these partnerships are characterized by bringing difference together: different knowledge, approaches, people. Difference lies at the heart of…Continue reading→
“Sewing-as-therapy” Past and Present
Our research project Stitching-Obsession-Wellness seeks to explore the therapeutic role of sewing in 19th century asylums and its relevance to contemporary wellbeing. That relevance could not have been made more obvious by the Covid-19 pandemic. During the pandemic many people have taken up or returned to sewing as a means of coping with the stresses…Continue reading→
With a Human Mask
When I cycled through London and I was able to recognise beauty for the first time again after a very long dark time it was so special. I could see it and I was aware that I hadn’t see anything beautiful for months, that I couldn’t see anything positive, nothing good. It was as if…Continue reading→
Home Is Where The Head Is
Knowing that it’s Mental Health Awareness Week beginning the 10th of May has brought to light an aspect of the project I’m working on that’s far more poignant than I first thought. I am one of three researchers involved with ‘We Are Still Here’, which records the stories of people within the HIV-community. I am…Continue reading→
Collective Care: Curated Resources
Brigstow Funded Experimental Partnership “Experiments in Collective Care” has curated a lucky dip of resources to help you explore the subject of collective care. Click on the image of a question mark to be redirected to an online resource. Each question mark will send you to a different resource. What kinds of collective…Continue reading→
My Thoughts on Mental Health
With mental health week coming up, I started thinking about my own association with mental health, from a personal perspective, having struggled from time to time over the years, from the perspective of a past volunteer with Samaritans and from a work perspective. I thought I’d share a few of my thoughts with you. Sometimes, when you’re…Continue reading→
Unearthing Disciplinary Defaults
Brigstow’s seven new seedcorn funded projects have just begun working together. As usual, they bring together researchers from inside and outside the university, as well as radically interdisciplinary teams: Engineering Maths meets Education; Modern Languages and History meet Computer Science; English meets Psychology. As they began working, I read an article recently published by one…Continue reading→
Brigstow 2021 Ideas Exchanges
The Brigstow Institute has awarded Ideas Exchange funding to thirteen new interdisciplinary research partnerships. The Ideas Exchanges will explore the themes of: “Covid and Structural Inequalities”; “Research and the Creative Industries”; and “Living Well in the 21st Century”. We are delighted to announce that we have funded the following projects: Bristol Carescapes Involving Matthew Lariviere (Policy…Continue reading→
The Brigstow Institute launches new creative research to explore the politics of immigration and the environment through planting.
This initiative builds on, and brings together, two Experimental Partnerships that were funded by the Brigstow Institute in 2020 that both used creative methodologies and involved members of Migration Mobilities Bristol (MMB). Researchers from these projects (Prof Katharine Charsley from “Kept Apart: Making prose-poetry with people separated from families by the immigration system” and Dr Nariman Massoumi…Continue reading→
Brigstow Institute awards two Collaborative Fellowships
The Brigstow Institute at the University of Bristol, has awarded two Collaborative Fellowship awards that seek to critically interrogate structural inequalities that have been particularly highlighted by the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Collaborative Fellowships have been awarded to: “Access and Active Leisure in a Time of the Pandemic: Tales of Two Cities” involving Dr….Continue reading→