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

The complex longing for home

It could be mild, an almost poetic longing. Or it could be visceral, deep, an overwhelming feeling that eats into your everyday life. Come with Gail Tolley as she introduces a deep dive into homesickness.

Inside the mind of George Vasey, co-curator of Misbehaving Bodies

Discover how curator George Vasey honoured the approaches of Jo Spence and Oreet Ashery, who mischievously subvert clichés around illness and death.

How can we prevent violence?

Evidence shows that strategies to prevent some types of violence can be very effective, while other, less well-acknowledged forms continue unabated. But hope can still guide us into a more peaceful future.

Inside the mind of Somewhere in Between’s curator, Laurie Britton Newell

The exhibition's curator shares her secrets.

Can isolation lead to manipulation?

Military-funded researchers wanted to know if isolation techniques could facilitate brainwashing. One neuroscientist suggested that it might improve our own control over our minds.

Blood

Discover the history, mythology and taboos around blood and menopause, and hear from some contemporary voices about their experiences of periods and the onset of menopause.

Sex work, stigma and whorephobia

Like everyone, sex workers sometimes need medical or mental health support. But shame and stigma seriously affect attitudes and access.

Between sickness and health

In early 2020, the subject Will Rees was studying – imaginary illnesses – took on a new relevance as everyone anxiously scanned themselves for Covid symptoms each day. But this kind of self-scrutiny is nothing new, as he reveals.

John Walter on ‘Alien Sex Club’

I’m a painter, but I make worlds.

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?

How do advertisers get inside our heads?

Vance Packard exposed techniques of mass manipulation developed by 1950s advertisers that are still at work today in the age of big data.

Do good mothers make good democracy?

To be psychologically fit for democracy, one distinguished paediatrician argued that you need a ‘good enough mother’ – and that we must acknowledge the bad side of our feelings.

Thomas Sankara and the stomachs that made themselves heard

Thomas Sankara’s vision to transform farming and health in Burkina Faso turned to dust with his assassination. Perry Blankson highlights the considerable achievements of Sankara’s brief span in power.

A head apart from the body

We look to the future of science via science fiction to explore how a head may live apart from its body.

Coasting to catastrophe

In climate change, everything – and everyone – is connected. The watery process that will gradually cut off the Isle of Thanet from the British mainland has begun, and everyone in the UK needs to pay attention.

Deciding a date for the end of the world

When will the world end? Charlotte Sleigh explores how our obsession with dates and dramatic imaginings of the end can distract us from the dangers slowly creeping up on us.

Sick of the theatre

What makes the stage a good place to share real-life experiences of ill health?

Inside the minds of Teeth’s two curators, James Peto and Emily Scott-Dearing

James Peto and Emily Scott-Dearing talk visceral reactions, their interactions and object extractions.

How electromagnetic therapy inspired me

Poet Sarah James explores how repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation treated her depression and influenced her art.

The quest to breed gifted children

If you had the chance, would you choose a genius baby?

Transforming the decorative into dissent

Discover how embroidered messages by two ‘troublesome’ women in 19th-century asylums are mirrored in the therapeutic quilting work of writer Rachel May.

Can our minds be taken hostage?

It’s not unusual for captives to end up feeling strong bonds with their captors. But is it a matter of submission or survival?

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.

Maladaptive daydreaming, gender myths and me

Can you daydream too much? Excessive daydreamer Laura Grace Simpkins reflects on studies into “maladaptive daydreaming” and asks why so few fellow dreamers seem to be men.