Hubbub at The Hub

Goals

Hubbub investigated rest and its ‘opposites’ during their time in The Hub.

They also looked at the health implications for modern lives that are increasingly lived in a hubbub of activity.

The group’s core team included a social scientist, a poet, a psychologist and a broadcaster.

Research outputs

Hubbub’s work included a survey called the Rest Test. Launched through BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service, it’s credited as being the largest-ever survey about rest. More than 18,000 people from 134 countries took part.

The group also staged ‘Rest and its Discontents’, an exhibition and series of events at the Mile End Pavilion in east London. Exhibits included audio recordings, film and interactive installations.

Publications included ‘The Restless Compendium’, an open-access book of essays on rest, restlessness, silence and noise. Contributors included psychologists, activists and historians.

The Team

Felicity Callard
Professor Felicity Callard was the Director of Hubbub. Currently Director of Birkbeck Institute for Social Research, her research interests include interdisciplinarity and collaboration and cultural and social theory. She is currently writing a book about daydreaming.

Charles Fernyhough
Charles Fernyhough is a writer and psychologist. He's a professor at Durham University where he leads Hearing the Voice, an interdisciplinary project investigating auditory verbal hallucinations.

Claudia Hammond
Claudia Hammond is a journalist and broadcaster. She studied psychology at Sussex University before joining the BBC. She currently presents All in the Mind on BBC Radio 4 and Health Check on the BBC World Service.

James Wilkes
James Wilkes is a poet and writer. He’s worked with scientists, artists and musicians to research subjects from brain imaging to landscape. James has been poet-in-residence at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience in London.