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Printing the body

The 18th century saw multiple technical developments in both printing and medicine. Colourful collaborations ensued – to the benefit of growing ranks of medical students.

Portraits, from a distance

Join photographer Michelle Sank on her daily walk around Exeter. Strength, frustration, resilience and eccentricity all show in these candid images portraying life under the constraints of coronavirus lockdown.

Temporary chroma key memorials

In this imaginary podcast, artist A R Hopwood creates a scene where he interviews his friend and former collaborator ‘Paul’, who died by suicide in 2019.

Reversing the psychiatric gaze

Nineteenth-century psychiatrists were keen to categorise their patients’ illnesses reductively – by their physical appearance. But we can see a far more complex picture of mental distress, revealed by those patients able to express their inner worlds in art.

Cracks that let the light in

Rai Waddingham lives with voices other people cannot hear. Here she describes how she has come to accept, understand and calm her voices, and to acknowledge her strength.

How depression ruined my relationship with sleep

One reaction to depression is a craving for sleep, creating a dependence that can provoke guilt and anxiety. Emerging from “five blurry years”, one writer tracks her steps to better health.

Notes upon arrival

In an effort to feel at home back in the country of her birth, poet Bhanu Kapil recognises the small revelations of nature in a chilly UK spring as a way to reconnect.

The side effects of lithium mining

Laura Grace Simpkins attempts to untangle some uncomfortable truths about the social and environmental costs of making her medication.

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’.

Crime drama and the realistic cadaver

Today we are accustomed to the increasingly realistic look of dead bodies in on-screen dramas. Special-effects expert Hildegunn M S Traa reveals how crime and morgue scenes reflect the social idea of death.

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.

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

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.

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.

How homesickness inspires art

Gail Tolley looks at homesickness through the eyes of three contemporary artists and finds powerful new themes of identity and connection.

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.

Lonely bodies are hungry for more than turkey

At Christmas, many charities provide dinners for homeless or isolated people. Food is central to festive celebrations, but it can also satisfy our hunger for belonging and community.

How my wheelchair changed my life

A young woman diagnosed with a disabling condition found her world shrank without the mobility aids she needed to get outside. Finally facing the stigma around using a wheelchair transformed her everyday life.

A virtual view of history

Step inside Anne Frank’s house or explore the galleries in a museum destroyed by fire. VR brings history and art satisfyingly close when we’re unable to get there in person.

You, a thousand years ago

Jack Hartnell argues that, if we were transported into the medieval past, we’d find ourselves somewhere different yet strangely familiar.

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.

Surviving fatness

It took time for LMM to discover that being fat and poor are mutually exclusive. Here she describes resisting fatphobia by being visible and leaning in to the stereotype.

Drops of water

In the compulsory isolation of lockdown, Daisy Lafarge’s repeated visits – via a new microscope – to the miniature worlds contained by drops of pond water provided her with the company and escapism she craved.

How ritual creates meaning

In a world that encourages us to quash our sense of wonder, ritual can help push away apathy and nurture life-enhancing creativity and imagination.