This research uses collaborative autoethnography; our personal experiences, reflected through the lenses of each other’s point of view; to help us know ourselves and make sense of our practice. We also show how art, in the form of comics, poems and a song, can be used to deepen our research by adding meaning, connection and joy. We present this research as a patchwork text of writing, art and conversations. Our work is underpinned by theory, particularly drawing on Sara Ahmed and bell hooks. It is produced by the three of us to illuminate the process of decolonising a curriculum. We see this paper as part of our collective resistance: resistance to colonialism, to scientism and to inhumanity. We hope you will find resonances with your practice, and perhaps discover new ways to find meaning and connections.
]]>Using established medical techniques, art-based workshops, and focus groups with postoperative participants with AIS and their families we gathered both quantitative and qualitative data. The workshops explored the aesthetics of imperfection through material investigations that focus on the body as both an object and how it is experienced using the metaphor of tree images. Drawing parallels between the growth patterns of trees that, for complex and often unknown reasons, have grown unexpectedly we explored questions around ideological notions of perfect growth through art-making in a non-clinical setting. Uniquely, the pilot project sought to draw on insights from four key disciplines (art, medicine, psychology and human geography), thinking across boundaries to evoke different ways of knowing and understanding the complexities of body perception through image-making.
]]>Tweetable abstract: Effective communication is critical in the aftermath of an NHS staff suicide. By doing so, NHS Trusts can help to reduce the trauma suicide can have on an employee and support good mental health across its workforce @stann2.
]]>