Stories search

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.

Ludwig Guttmann and the birth of the Paralympics

As millions across the world enjoy this year’s Paralympics, discover how the Paralympian movement started life – with an event held by the visionary neurosurgeon Ludwig Guttmann.

Why the world needs collectors

Those who collect play an important role as “facilitators of curiosity”, says Anna Faherty.

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.

Dirt, disease and the Inspector of Nuisances

In the days when ‘bad air’ was thought to spread disease, dozens of Inspectors of Nuisances ceaselessly struggled against the perils of dirt – both visible and invisible.

Inside the minds of A R Hopwood and Honor Beddard

The curators of ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ reveal the stories behind the exhibits, and the intriguing truths the show confronts us with.

Befriending heavy breathers

Read the fascinating story behind the rare manual that helped volunteers on one of Britain’s first free telephone helplines to deal with masturbating callers.

The Garden

We explore ideas of belonging and colonial legacies, guerrilla gardening in response to a tragic event, and the link between an urban nature reserve and a GP’s surgery.

Good animals, bad humans?

Could an animal be more evolved than a human? Victorian psychologists thought that in some cases the answer could be ‘yes’.

Illuminated manuscripts, illuminating medicines

From rare bugs to exorbitantly priced plant parts, find out more about the artistic and medical uses of pigments from the past.

Dial ‘S’ for sex

In pre-internet days, phone boxes became a patchwork of ‘tart cards’ offering sexual services. Find out about the clandestine world they hint at.

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.

An animated almanac for the modern world

Discover why Thomas Coleman wanted to make a medieval folding almanac relevant to the modern world and see the film for yourself.

Interpreting the Ayurvedic Man

The Key to Memory: Use art to articulate

Danny Rees explains what William Utermohlen’s self-portraits can tell us about how and why we remember.

The Key to Memory: Follow your nose

Elissavet Ntoulia explores what a pair of pomanders can tell us about how and why we remember.

Cocaine, the Victorian wonder drug

Today, cocaine has a very poor public image as one of the causes of crime and violence. But for the Victorians it was welcomed as the saviour of modern surgery.

Designing better mental health wards

Bringing colour and natural light to tired, grubby mental health wards has a measurably positive effect on patients. A few groundbreaking projects are showing the way.

Inside the mind of Living with Buildings curator, Emily Sargent

Curator Emily Sargent reveals why council estates and a Finnish TB sanatorium were chosen for the ‘Living with Buildings’ exhibition.

The smile catchers

From facial recognition to emojis in apps, find out how the monitoring of emotions is used to get more out of workers.

Sex in graphic novels

Sex and sexuality have long been explored in the history of the graphic novel.

The painter, the psychiatrist and a fashion for hysteria

A dramatic painting brings a famous event in medical history alive. But it also tells a tale about the health preoccupations of the time.

Picturing mental health

Ron Hampshire created artworks while resident at Netherne psychiatric hospital. What can we learn from them?

You know the drill

Richard Barnett opens wide the true meaning of a healthy mouth.

Fantastic beasts and unnatural history

Find out how a 17th-century compendium of the natural world came to present fantastical beasts –like dragons – as real, living creatures.