Stories

We tell stories about health and human experience. Our words and pictures make connections, provoke new thinking and share lived experiences. You can pitch a story to us.

Photograph of three Instax Mini instant film prints in a line, resting on a textured brick surface. The print on the left shows a man wearing a black cropped vest standing against a graffitied wall with his right arm raised up behind his head to show his armpit hair. The print in the centre shows a closeup, flash lit image of a woman's groin and midriff. She is pulling aside her knickers to show her pubic hair. The print on the right shows a woman standing outside in front of a metal staircase. Behind her is also a tall sunflower. Her right arm is raised up behind her head to show her armpit hair.
  • Photo story

My body, my hair

To depilate or not to depilate? Farah Esset and Eden Rickson share a collection of personal pictures and stories that explore the intimate interplay between body hair and identity.

Photograph of an advertising leaflet folding out into a poster (on the reverse) showing a variety of bottles of coloured liquid and the protective card packaging for sending them through the mail. The leaflet is pictured raised slightly off a grey concrete textured background.
  • In pictures

Historical ways to hang on to your hair

Could upper-class hair-hygiene regimes cause baldness, or does hair health depend on a blast of deadly mercury? Maisie Jenkins scours the archives for historic follicle care.

Part of Inside Our Collections

drawing of a bird flying in the sky.
  • Comic

I still know how to fly

Have you discovered inner strength you never knew you had?

Part of Pandemic journal

Mixed media collage of four people, three female and one male, taken from various distances. Surrounding them are various hand drawn doodles. The closest person, to the left of the frame, is a woman wearing glasses, surrounded by colourful dots. Behind her a woman is sitting backwards on a chair with her head in her hands. She has been outlined in blue and black pen and has an ominous cloud above her head. Towards the center right the full body portrait of a man with his arms folded and staring at the camera. A series of outlines surround his body, complete with a yellow mark drawn on his chest. To the far right, the full body portrait a woman is framed by the handwritten words “Not that much has changed” in purple marker pen.
  • Article

Is it really OK to not be OK?

Our mental healthcare system is still the poor relation of services that treat physical illness, and the pandemic has shone a spotlight on this situation. Campaigner James Downs argues for fundamental change.

Photograph of cut out pieces of archive material from above, all raised slightly above a flat light blue background. One of the illustrations shows a shocked woman looking at enlarged microscope illustration of caricatured microbes found the dirty water causing a cholera outbreak. Surrounding the woman is a series of circular illustrations showing infection rates of the cholera outbreak during different years starting in 1840.
  • Article

Why pandemic denial is nothing new

Could today’s Covid-deniers be taking lessons from history? After all, it’s nearly 200 years since frustrations at a cholera-induced lockdown erupted in Sunderland.

The heart of homesickness

Gail Tolley uncovers the complexities of homesickness and explores why this condition is affecting so many people today more seriously than we might expect.

Books

Get stuck into one of our books, and explore the complexities of the human condition.

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Lesley Imgart comic detail
  • Comic

I've come to appreciate social interaction

Are you interacting with strangers more?

Part of Pandemic journal

Artwork created by painting over the surface of a black and white photographic print with colourful paint. The artwork shows the original scene of a young woman walking through a parkland scene pushing a pram. Sitting up inside the pram is a young toddler facing forwards. Behind them is a black hooped fence separating the path from the planted grass area. In the background are trees and the top of a large stone building. The woman, toddler and pram are surrounded by a large oval shape painted green, which is covered in small lighter green dots and many organic shaped circular light green outlines. Around the edge of the oval shape are a line of coloured painted spots, of yellow, pink and purple.
  • Serial
Part6

Finding consolation in social isolation

Feeling isolated and anxious during the lockdowns of the last year, Tanya Perdikou found solace in reconnecting to her past and reaching out to neighbours in the present.

Part of How to belong

Photograph of a high redbrick wall running from left to right, in front of which is an empty road and a crossing with traffic lights and road signs. At the bottom of the image is a grass verge with a small crop of bright yellow daffodils.
  • Article

Chasing spring

Isabella Kaminski reflects on a transformative journey that saw her cycle the length of the UK, tracking the first signs of spring. She explores what the changing seasons can tell us about ourselves and the climate crisis.

Lesley Imgart comic detail
  • Comic

I'm taking it 1 to 3 days at a time

Are you ready to make plans yet?

Part of Pandemic journal

Artwork created by painting over the surface of a black and white photographic print with colourful paint. The artwork shows the original head of a young girl from the photograph beneath. The girl is pictured from the chest up and is smiling to the camera. Apart from her head and face, the rest of the image is a painted cyan background covered in small blue dots and purple lines forming cell like structures around the blue dots. The girl's clothes are painted differently, with a yellow background, covered in orange dots, surrounded by loops of purple lines, arranged almost like scales or feathers.
  • Serial
Part5

Belonging, babies and self-belief

As a first-time mother living abroad, it seemed too exhausting to truly connect with new acquaintances. Instead, Tanya Perdikou began to make a kind of peace with herself.

Part of How to belong

Photographic collage of a series of landscapes overlapping on one another. The individual images feature obstacles to the visually impaired such as shadows, wheelie bins, street furniture and lampposts. In the centre of the frame are three overlapping photographs that make up a pier that reaches out to sea.
  • Article

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.

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