Artist Sofie Layton works with medical data to give physical form to personal narratives of maternal loss and bereavement. This post describes the process of creating Excavations, a performative work that explores a mother’s grief at having lost a young child to cancer.
This mini-series of short essays by Jane Hibberd, Andy Hibberd, Winifred Lee and Emily Player offers four perspectives on an innovative example of embedding medical humanities within the undergraduate curriculum for medical students at
This mini-series of short essays by Jane Hibberd, Andy Hibberd, Winifred Lee and Emily Player offers four perspectives on an innovative example of embedding health humanities within the undergraduate curriculum for medical students at
This mini-series of short essays by Jane Hibberd, Andy Hibberd, Winifred Lee and Emily Player offers four perspectives on an innovative example of embedding medical humanities within the undergraduate curriculum for medical students at
This mini-series of short essays by Jane Hibberd, Andy Hibberd, Winifred Lee and Emily Player offers four perspectives on an innovative example of embedding health humanities within the undergraduate curriculum for medical students at
Being a patient today increasingly means being an image. Liz Orton’s new artist’s book, Every Body is an Archive, takes the medical image as a site of critical enquiry to explore questions of ownership, language and power within the clinical encounter. Polyphony editor Fiona Johnstone met with Liz Orton to talk about the book, the centrality of image-making to medical practice, and how right now is a radical moment for the clinical gaze.
How can artworks question prevailing norms and assumptions in medicine and healthcare? Imogen Wiltshire argues that the work of artist Rebecca Harris plays a critical role in exploring and addressing stigma and preconceptions about the fat body.
Graphic medicine provides insight into the complex issues around health, society and relationships. The ‘Haunting Our Bodies’ workshop as part of the Being Human Festival, led by Chase Ledin and Garry MacLaughlin, allowed participants to explore this and have a go at creating their own artwork.
Alexandra Barmpouti reviews Bonnie Lander Johnson and Eleanor Decamp’s Blood Matters: Studies in European Literature and Thought, 1400-1700 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018). Blood is not merely a biological substance but has often acquired cultural, religious and
Guest author Chase Ledin explores how comic books become a significant platform for HIV/AIDS narratives with the example of Charles Burn’s Black Hole (2005) series. Black nights. Bone-like branches. The stars open from a
