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Divining the world through an artist’s almanac

Amanda Couch's artists book, 'Huwawa in the Everyday: an almanac' is inspired by the entrail like folds of a medieval folding and its function as a guide for astrological divinations linking the body, health and the heavens. Like the original almanac her work is designed to be carried out into the wider world.

Photographs as evidence of gender identity and sexuality

Intriguing photographs from sexologists’ archives suggest they could have helped people explore their gender identity and sexuality.

Getting under the skin

Before the invention of X-ray in 1895 there was really only one way to accurately study the human body, and that was to cut it open.

Children in burns prevention campaigns

Whose responsibility is it to prevent accidental burns and scalds in the home? Shane Ewen’s research shows that it’s everyone’s concern.

Vivid nights, dream-filled days

Each night, intense and memorable dreams create another life for Katie da Cunha Lewin. Find out how her waking and dreaming selves have become enmeshed, allowing her powerful self-knowledge.

Plant portraits

The beautiful and mysterious illustrations in medieval herbals convey a wealth of knowledge about the plants they portray.

The ‘epileptic’ in art and science

From scarred outsiders in literature to the cold voyeurism of medical films and photography, people who experience seizures and epilepsy are rarely shown in a compassionate light in popular culture.

Daria Martin on ‘Sensorium Tests’ and ‘At the Threshold’

Manipulating the evidence with deepfake technology

How can you be sure that the person speaking on the screen is genuine? Find out how sophisticated digital manipulation is blurring the boundaries between real and ‘deepfake’.

Pain, politics and the power of photography

Art historian Giulia Smith explains what she most admires in the work of Jo Spence and Oreet Ashery, and how their approach makes illness political.

Of incubators, orchids and artificial wombs

In this extract from Claire Horn’s new book, ‘Eve: The Disobedient Future of Birth’, she traces the development of the artificial womb, soon to become a reality.

Can our sexual desires be transformed?

In the 1950s, many psychiatrists thought that homosexuality could be reformed. One found that it couldn’t – and his discoveries led to a change in the law.

Healing through ink

Taking an approach learned from his OCD treatment, Josh Weeks faced his fear of getting tattoos, and embraced inking as part of the healing process.

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.

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.

Obesity and Britain’s boys

Six young men and six experiences of being overweight. Find out how these boys and their loved ones feel about this stigmatising issue.

Migraine, creativity and me

Novelist Lydia Ruffles explores how migraine has made her mind stretch, shrink, widen and change, and how it’s influenced her art.

Interpreting the Ayurvedic Man

A British Sign Language video is the latest interpretation of an unique 18th-century Nepali painting about Ayurvedic medicine.

Going viral in the online anti-vaccine wars

‘Anti-vaxxers’ are taking their message online using powerful images as well as words. But is the pro campaigners’ response any better?

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.

The gym of cartoon men

In men, body dysmorphia can be expressed as ‘bigorexia’ – the belief that your body is too weak and thin – or anorexia. Andrew McMillan explores two sides of the same coin.

Confession as therapy in the Middle Ages

The line between confession and counselling has been blurred for centuries.

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.

Birth, babies and boxes of memories

With memories of her baby in neonatal intensive care still fresh, Erin Beeston decides to unearth the poignant objects her family kept following births, going back as far as Victorian times.

Our Covid complicity

Athena Stevens thought she had a cold that she tried to ignore, but it turned out to be Covid-19. Here she reflects on how we have all put ourselves and others at risk with the choices we’ve made during this pandemic.