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Performance art, frozen in time

For over a year, live performance art with an audience present has been largely impossible. But still images continue to allow artists in this sphere to inspire audiences at home.

Searching for a place to call home

Wherever she’s lived, Tanya Perdikou has rarely felt at home, and numerous moves have perpetuated a sense of disconnection. But signs from nature offer powerful moments of connection.

Disabled musicians and the fight to perform

Music might be the universal language, but unfortunately it doesn’t come with universal access. London-based artist Miss Jacqui discusses the barriers to her career with Jamie Hale.

Ayurveda: Knowledge for long life

The story of medicine in India is rich and complex. Aarathi Prasad investigates how it came to be this way.

The house of Joan

The longueurs of hospital stays and enforced inactivity were the spur to Joan’s precise tailoring skills and flamboyant creations, all to the benefit of her fashion-loving sisters.

The extraordinary body of Evatima Tardo

Darling of 19th-century American freak shows, Evatima Tardo remained serene as she withstood crucifixion and the bites of poisonous snakes. But she took the secret behind her abilities to her grave.

Trans masculinity on the record

Curator of the Museum of Transology in Brighton E-J Scott tells the story behind a few of the 250 objects from the collection, and the powerful effect they had on him as he put trans lives on the record.

The indelible harm caused by conversion therapy

With first-hand evidence from two powerful testimonies, neurologist Jules Montague explores the destructive history of conversion therapy, a punitive treatment designed to ‘cure’ people of homosexuality.

Finding the words to talk about emptiness

Shored up by a diagnosis and medication, Cassie Doney tried to find out more about the profound feeling of emptiness they were experiencing. But research is thin on the ground.

The stranger who started an epidemic

New Orleans, 1853. James McGuigan arrives in the port city and succumbs to yellow fever.

The unearthly children of science fiction’s Cold War

In the 1950s a new figure emerged in British novels, film and television: a disturbing young alien that revealed postwar society’s fear of the unruly power of teenagers.

Audrey in the world

As the collection is fully catalogued, the archive is opened up to the public. A feature film about Audrey premieres, and Audrey gets her own Wikipedia page, so people can learn about her. For archivist Elena, it’s time to step back.

Cataloguing Audrey

Work begins in earnest to restore order to the archive Audrey Amiss kept of the minutest happenings in her life. Like detectives, the archivists search for subtle clues to chronology in the mass of materials.

How we bury our children

Following her baby daughter’s funeral, Wendy Pratt found that visiting the grave gave her a way to carry out physical acts of caring for her child. Here she considers how parents’ nurturing instincts live on after a child’s death.

How electromagnetic therapy inspired me

Poet Sarah James explores how repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation treated her depression and influenced her art.

Dangers inside and out

Eimear McBride reflects on the deadly consequences of misogyny in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard and argues why advising women to simply “stay indoors” is wrong.

A reflection on art in a mental hospital

Artist Beth Hopkins explains how she used her experience of researching the Adamson Collection to create an embroidered wall hanging.

Shakespeare’s cholerics were the real drama queens

In Shakespeare’s times, people’s personalities were categorised by four temperaments. The choleric temperament was hot-tempered and active.

The relationship between science and art

Often seen as opposites, science and art both depend on observation and synthesis.

The metamorphosis of masturbation

Throughout history, medics and campaigners have tried to stamp out masturbation – but is modern science transforming its reputation?

The origins and meanings of pharmacy symbols

What have snakes, unicorns and crocodiles got to do with pharmacies? The history of these modern signs goes back to the Greek gods.

The Key to Memory: Mark it out

Sarah Bentley explores what a papier-mâché figure from Japan can tell us about how and why we remember.

Trust me, I’m a patient

Artist Rachel Rowan Olive is an expert in the way her mental health condition affects her. Here she explains how it helps if doctors understand that.

How the Peckham Experiment inspired my fiction

Find out how an unruly mass of archive material from a 1930s radical health centre has inspired brand new writing.

Titans in the landscape