- Article
- Article
The intermediate life of spirits
Courttia Newland explores the events and his feelings surrounding the death of his mother-in-law, Tara Chauhan.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Ayurveda: Knowledge for long life
The story of medicine in India is rich and complex. Aarathi Prasad investigates how it came to be this way.
- Article
- Article
Abandoning daydreams of a life without diabetes
After years of longing for a cure for her type 1 diabetes, Daisy Watson Shaw, partly due to medical advances in managing the condition, has reached a state of acceptance. Her wishes now are for greater understanding.
- Article
- Article
Hands-on healthcare
A young hospital volunteer feared her contribution was a long way from the serious business of real healthcare. But time spent painting patients’ nails proved to be a valuable contribution to life on the ward.
- Interview
- Interview
Refugee health on a pound a day
Two refugees living a hand-to-mouth existence in the UK explain how trauma has affected their health, and how a little kindness is bringing them hope.
- Article
- Article
In the tracks of Derek Jarman’s tears
Researcher E K Myerson shares her moving encounters with the personal papers of artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman.
- Article
- Article
Butch drag in the builders’ caff
Two men in a café dressed in practical workwear might seem indistinguishable, but closer inspection reveals layers of complex, nuanced identity.
- Article
- Article
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.
- Article
- Article
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.
- Article
- Article
Chemotherapy-day drawings
Undergoing treatment for bowel cancer, artist Clare Smith produced around 70 abstract drawings while sitting in the chemotherapy chair. She reflects on how creativity can bring respite in a crisis.
- Article
- Article
Designing death in the virtual city
Danger and death are fun when they’re virtual – and when they incorporate realistic elements. Now the tables are turned, as urban planners learn from game environments.
- Article
- Article
Who was Audrey Amiss?
Elena Carter introduces the vast collection left behind by artist Audrey Amiss, who documented her life in astonishing detail.
- Book extract
- Book extract
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.
- Article
- Article
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.
- Article
- Article
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?
- Article
- Article
Interpreting the Ayurvedic Man
A British Sign Language video is the latest interpretation of an unique 18th-century Nepali painting about Ayurvedic medicine.
- Article
- Article
Race, religion and the Black Madonna
Mystery and controversy surround the dark-skinned religious icon who represents the Virgin Mary throughout the Catholic world.
- Article
- Article
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.
- Article
- Article
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.
- Article
- Article
Louis Wain’s cryptic cats
Once famous for his quirky cat illustrations, today Louis Wain is often portrayed as a ‘psychotic’ artist whose illness can be mapped out through his drawings. Here Bryony Benge-Abbott takes a more rounded view.
- Article
- Article
Fashion for an unruly body
One weekend, just before an operation to correct her scoliosis, Rosalind Jana stopped trying to hide her body. Read how those two days helped her step into the future.
- Article
- Article
Parks and politics in Brixton’s past and present
Gentrification is creeping along Railton Road, but racial inequality still lingers in memories of the 1980s, and in the continuing lack of green-space access.
- Article
- Article
The empty bungalow
Grandma’s unsteady piles of stuff have been dismantled and dispersed. From an empty bungalow, Georgie Evans makes a plea for hoarding behaviour to be better understood.
- Photo story
- Photo story
Generation portraits
Photographer Julian Germain’s major project focusing on portraits of multi-generational families came to a sudden halt during the various Covid-19 lockdowns. Here families celebrate coming together again in words and images.
- Article
- Article
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.