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Defying deafness through music

Did you know that Beethoven’s profession meant he was ashamed to admit to being deaf? Find out how similar prejudices persist today and how our writer is helping to break them down.

Is shoegaze the loneliest genre of music?

Christine Ro explores the connection between shyness and shoegaze.

How music opens the doors of memory and the mind

People living with dementia can often still listen, perform or move to music. What does this tell us about how memories are formed?

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.

How hip-hop can save your mental health

Hip-hop is an unusual tool in the mental health professional’s armoury. But fans and performers can testify to the sympathetic and restorative powers of the genre.

Rocking psychiatry with R D Laing

Turn on, tune in, drop out. Discover how six rock songs from the 1960s and 1970s link the ideas of famous therapist R D Laing with the era’s counterculture.

Giving shape to sound

Fascinated by language and how music feels, Deaf rapper Signkid creates tracks that give shape to sound. He discusses inspiration, access and performing for all audiences, D/deaf and hearing alike.

How the magician’s assistant creates the illusion

Without breaking the spell, performer Naomi Paxton reveals the subtle ways the magician’s assistant helps the audience to keep believing.

The Key to Memory: Follow your nose

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

Rehab centres and the ‘cure’ for addiction

Guy Stagg takes us on a brief history of rehab centres and their approaches to addiction and recovery.

Joy

Bidisha explores joy, from the psychology of our earliest laughs to collective and solitary pleasures like comedy, food and performance.

The healing power of breathing

The healing powers of different breathing methods are said to help with a range of health challenges, from asthma to PTSD. Effie Webb traces their spiritual origins and explores the modern proliferation of breathwork therapies.

Rebuilding my identity after a brain injury

Chris Miller talks about how a brain injury forced him to reassess his place in the world – physically, personally and socially.

’No you’re not’ – a portrait of autistic women

In this sensitive series of portraits and interviews, photographer Rosie Barnes acknowledges the voices and experiences of autistic women.

‘Jessy’, a film about cerebral palsy

How the 1950s British film industry portrayed this disease.

Synaesthesia, or when senses overlap

What’s it like to see heartbeats, taste Tube stations or hear paintings?

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.

Hope

In the first episode of our podcast series ‘Hello Happiness’, Bidisha explores our emotions – focusing on hope – with a diverse range of scientists, historians, artists and activists.

Political brilliance and the power of self-promotion

How do you convince people you’re exceptional? Meet the ultimate self-styled genius.

Words of hope and anger

Author and spoken word poet Penny Pepper remembers her childhood dreams, and speaks out against the barriers society uses to prevent disabled people from fulfilling their potential.

The case of the cancerous stomach

Steak and schnitzel were on the menu again after Theodor Billroth successfully excised a woman’s stomach cancer in 1881. Remarkably, today’s surgeons still perform the same procedure, with slight modifications.

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

Making sense of senses lost

In rapid succession, Steve Barker suddenly lost sight and hearing on his left side. The effect on how he perceives the world has been profound.

We are from here, but not from here

Novelist JJ Bola on being a refugee with a British passport and what that placenessless means for a search for identity.

Collecting pandemic stories

Find out how personal notebook jottings from two flatmates became ‘Journals of a Pandemic’, a comprehensive diary-keeping project encompassing dozens of writers from a wide variety of backgrounds.