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Stomach Ache Project: Creativity, Lived Experience & Guts
May 27 @ 10:00 am – 11:30 am
We are pleased to welcome the lead researchers of the Stomach Ache Project (2021 – Present), which is an international research project and network exploring how creative and curatorial methods can provoke new ways of representing the lived experience of digestive disruption. Reflecting on practice-research approaches shaped by lived experience of unruly guts, lead Researcher Dr Vanessa Bartlett (Independent) and Network Co-Lead Dr Rachel Marsden (University of the Arts London (UAL) / University of Birmingham) will present the project’s development to date. Drawing on methods from creative arts and medical humanities, the session considers the role of creativity, embodiment and lived experience in exploring different digestive worlds. After the presentation, Vanessa and Rachel welcome conversation about how creative methods can bridge gaps between scientific knowledge and everyday lived experiences of gut health issues. We welcome practitioners, creatives, researchers and students, also those interested in justice, equity, diversity and inclusion in complex interdisciplinary fields.
Biographies
Dr Vanessa Bartlett is a visual art curator, arts and wellbeing specialist and occasional artist. She brings art and people together to explore how equality, ethics and social justice are influenced by the medical and technical systems that shape our lives. She specialises in curating exhibitions and creative projects that explore themes of mental and physical health, disability justice and ethics and practices of care. She was Mckenzie Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Culture and Communication (2020-2023), and Research Fellow in the Faculty of Law (2024-2025), at University of Melbourne
Dr Rachel Marsden is a curator, researcher, and educator whose work focuses on creative health and social prescribing, practice-research and creative methods, and inclusive pedagogies and ethics of care, informed by her lived experience of dynamic disability. She is currently Research Fellow in Creative-Public Health as part of an NIHR SPHR Transdisciplinary Fellowship with the University of Birmingham and Keele University (PHRESH Consortium) (2024-27), and Senior Lecturer in Creative Education at University of the Arts London (UAL). At UAL, she recently co-founded IRL (In Real Life): Lived Experience Lab, a new research collective. She is also Regional Champion (West Midlands) for the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance (UK).
Venue: In person & online. Details to follow asap.