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A message from my skin
As wildfires threatened Seattle, resident Sydney Baker experienced corresponding flares of acne and rashes. Her skin was telling her something about the health of the world around her.
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How hospital care fails disabled bodies
Hospitals aim to make sick people well. But if the sick person is also disabled, the unbending nature of monolithic hospital systems can easily worsen the situation. Here Jamie Hale writes from painful personal experience.
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Finding my body through the wilderness
Writer Jennifer Neal used vigorous exercise classes to try and heal herself in the years following an assault. But it was only while hiking outdoors that she found true strength.
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The prostitute whose pox inspired feminists
Fitzrovia, 1875. A woman recorded only as A.G. enters hospital and is diagnosed with syphilis.
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How I escaped my anxiety and depression through architecture and poetry
Social anxiety led him to introversion and silence. The brutalist architecture of London’s Barbican Estate inspired his liberation in poetry.
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Lustmord and the three perspectives of murder
Artist Jenny Holzer's work shines a light on the three perspectives of sexual murder: the victim, the perpetrator and the observer.
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Acting, disableism and inclusive theatre
Deaf theatre director Jenny Sealey discusses inclusivity, community and the resilience of disabled actors.
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Talent, tech and visual art
Jamie Hale finds a combination of talent and technology are crucial when it comes to creating great visual art, but how do you keep working when your circumstances are in constant flux?
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Colonialism and the origins of skin bleaching
The widespread practice of skin bleaching was heavily influenced by the Western colonisation and slavery of African and South Asian countries. Ngunan Adamu explores this toxic history.
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How slums make people sick
A newly gentrified corner of Bermondsey leaves little clue to its less salubrious history. But a few intrepid writers recorded the details of existence in one of London’s most squalid slums.
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The hell of hay fever
After years suffering in silence, David Jesudason finds speaking out about his pollen allergy gives him hope for a future where his hay-fever symptoms are under control.
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Rediscovering Margaret Louden, a forgotten NHS hero
Bored during lockdown, David Jesudason started bin diving at night. Then a chance discovery set him on a new path: to tell the story of a forgotten female surgeon.
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Fighting shame by speaking out
Lucia Osborne-Crowley’s first instinct after being raped was to cover it up. Shame silenced her for ten years, but #MeToo gave her the courage to speak out.
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The tradesman who confronted the pestilence
The City of London, 1665. As the Great Plague hits the capital, John New faces a deadly dilemma.
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Love, longing and tea from the polski sklep
For people of Polish origin in the UK, herbal tea is closely tied to health and shared history. Kasia Tomasiewicz explores her changing relationship to these tea-related cultural habits.
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The child whose town rejected vaccines
Gloucester, 1896. Ethel Cromwell is taken ill at the height of Britain’s last great smallpox epidemic.
- Photo story
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The man who remembers everything
Tilney1 can remember his life in minute detail, but can’t control the incessant intrusion of thoughts and images from the past. As cuts to mental health services isolate him more and more, a crisis approaches.
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Confusion, guilt, and the battle to breastfeed
Most new mums are told that breast is best. But breastfeeding doesn’t always come as easily or naturally as you might imagine.
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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.