Open Spaces

About the event

For our next Open Spaces event "Graphic Medicine: why healthcare professionals should read and make comics" join Dr Ian Williams for this workshop looking at Graphic Medicine - an area of study and practice, based around the use of comics in healthcare, which he named and helped found.

In this Open Spaces session, Ian will talk about the use of images in a healthcare context and the particular power of comics - a hybrid medium of text and images which is being increasingly used to relate experiences of illness, stories of healthcare workers or patient information.

You will also have the opportunity to take part in some short exercises designed to give participants an introduction to the practice. No drawing skills are required.

Refreshments will be provided afterwards.

Register now by completing this short form.

About the speaker

Dr Ian Williams is an award-winning comics artist, educator, and doctor based in Brighton. He authored The Bad Doctor (2014), The Lady Doctor (2019), and is currently working on The Sick Doctor.

After studying Fine Art following medical school, he became a pioneer of the Graphic Medicine field, founding the Graphic Medicine website in 2007, which he co-edits. He is a founding member of the Graphic Medicine International Collective and co-author of the Eisner-nominated Graphic Medicine Manifesto.

Dr Williams created Sick Notes, a weekly comic for The Guardian (2015–2017), and collaborated with Matilda Tristram on an animation for Exeter University’s Care Under Pressure project. In 2022, he was commissioned by the Wellcome Collection for the comic series Sorry To Keep You Waiting.

He has spoken at numerous medical humanities, comics, and literary events and was recently featured in the British Medical Association President’s Inspiring Doctors podcast.

In medicine, he has worked as a GP, anaesthetist, expedition medic, GP trainer, and clinical lecturer, and served as a mountain rescue doctor in Snowdonia in the 1990s.

Register

Contact Details

If you have additional questions, please contact the Open Spaces Team.

Date: Tuesday 26 November 2024

Time: 17:15 - 19:00

Location: The Curve Lecture Theatre, View map

About this event

For our Open Spaces event "Breathe. Air pollution and lung health through multiple lenses: Respiratory Medicine, Public Health and Fine Art" join artist Professor Dryden Goodwin, public health expert, Dr Richard Alderslade and respiratory physician, Dr Helen Meredith as they explore air pollution, respiratory health and the complex challenges of the need for clean air.

In this Open Spaces session, Professor Goodwin will share his wonderful work as a catalyst to an interdisciplinary discussion on air pollution and its impact on respiratory health with Dr Richard Alderslade and Dr Helen Meredith.

About Breathe

In 2012, artist, Dryden Goodwin, created Breathe, an animation of 100s of drawings of his then five year-old son inhaling and exhaling, which was projected on the roof of St Thomas’ Hospital opposite the Houses of Parliament. Ten years later, Dryden revisited the subject, for ‘Breathe:2022’, making drawings of six Londoners who bear witness to the continued impact of air pollution, through their activism, bodies and breath.

This year the project moved to Lahore as part of Lahore Biennale LB03 Of Mountains and Seas. As Pakistan’s second biggest city, Lahore takes the lead in the poor air quality index with a score of 299 – just two points short of ‘hazardous’. For Breathe:Lahore Dryden grew the artwork making 230 pencil drawings of Pakistan’s leading clean air campaigner, Abid Omar, which were displayed, alongside drawings of the other activists as posters, digital billboards, and projections across the smog-choked city of Lahore and an installation at Lahore’s historic Bradlaugh Hall, showcasing the completed animation comprised of 1,617 drawings.

For the Breathe series of projects, Dryden has worked with the arts and science organisation Invisible Dust who are the producers.

About the speakers

Dr Richard Alderslade

Dr Alderslade has worked for forty years in public health, national and local health administration, research and higher education in the United Kingdom, and for ten years in humanitarian and development international health.

He has worked in the United Kingdom and abroad including posts with the UK Medical Civil Service, the National Health Service and World Health Organisation.

Since 2013 he has been a Senior Teaching Fellow in Public Health at St George’s Hospital, University of London. He also teaches public and global health subjects at New York University in the United States.

Professor Dryden Goodwin

Dryden Goodwin is a professor at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL.

Professor Goodwin’s work is defined by a rich dialogue between drawing, animation, photography, film and sound. He has consistently focused on the human figure, questioning the portrait form. His work offers a speculative vision that considers the uncertain processes of looking and representing, both in relation to what is experienced and what is seen. He considers the dynamics of human relationships—whether between strangers, within communities, in work environments, or among families and friends—addressing both individual and collective identities. He also explores urgent environmental and societal issues.

Professor Goodwin has produced several solo exhibitions and received film festival nominations for his work. His work is held in public collections including MoMA New York, the Tate Collection, National Portrait Gallery and the Science Museum.

Dr Helen Meredith

Dr Helen Meredith is a consultant and respiratory physician at St George’s Hospital, where she has worked for the last 9 years. She is the group lead there leading the team providing respiratory secondary care for Wandsworth and Merton as well as tertiary services across South West London.

She holds the degrees of MA (Cantab) from Cambridge University and MBBS from the Royal Free. She competed her respiratory training in hospitals across North East London seeing the impact of health inequalities on her patients there.

She has an interest in environmental pollution because it impacts on all aspects of respiratory health as well as the impact on our children and the community around us.

Contact Details

If you have additional questions, please contact the Open Spaces Team.

Date: Wednesday 13 November 2024

Location: Board Rooms H2.6 & 7, View map

About the event

A unique opportunity to meet our new President, Prof Sir Anthony Finkelstein CBE and Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Education, Prof Jane Saffell in an informal environment over refreshments.  They will be discussing their lives and careers using a selection of objects to help tell their inspiring stories. How did they overcome failure and disappointment? What, for them, counts as success? What helps them make decisions? What were pivotal points in their careers?

Date: Tuesday 29 October 2024

Location: Michael Heron Lecture Theatre, View map

About the event

Join ENO Singing for Breathing facilitator, Amy Hollinrake Tune ,to gain a better understanding of breath control through the use of voice:

• learn breathing techniques
• release physical tension
• enjoy the fun and therapeutic benefits of singing.

ENO Breathe is an award-winning breathing and wellbeing programme developed specifically for people recovering from COVID-19, who are still suffering from breathlessness and associated anxiety. Delivered by ENO in collaboration with Imperial College Healthcare teams entirely online, the programme focuses on breathing re-training through singing.

All welcome. No prior experience or interest in singing required to take part.

Join us to release your tension, learn about singing for breathing and have fun.

About the event facilitator

Amy Hollinrake is a folk singer and alumni of City Music who is currently working with the ENO on a programme to help long COVID patients with breathing through song. Alongside her work with the ENO she is also a professional vocalist, (singer-songwriter and session singer), researcher (critical perspectives on gendered archetypes in folk songs and ballads) and vocal coach.

She is very interested in singing for wellbeing and mental health benefits, as well as the importance of breath for respiratory health and associated anxiety. She has run wellbeing workshops recently with Meta and Google incorporating this and worked in other community music facilitator roles such as for the Irene Taylor Trust.

She is a songwriter  interested in the therapeutic impacts of creating original songs and music.

Contact Details

openspaces@sgul.ac.uk

Date: Wednesday 16 October 2024

Location: H0.2, View map

About the event

Attentive listening is as important for healthcare as it is for music or performance. Tansy Spinks’ soundwalk offers careful listening as an encounter with your immediate environs. In a walk around the rich and varied area of Tooting, you will listen to sounds heard as a ‘readymade composition’. You will be introduced to Chion’s three modes of listening; the causal, reduced and semantic as a way of heightening your attention and have an opportunity to meet new peers from courses across City St George’s.

The walk will be followed by a brief discussion of sounds heard and connotations suggested comparing notes from your own perspectives/language and thoughts on different readings. How might you incorporate embodied listening in your own field of practices and ways of working? References and readings for further study will be provided.

The event will include a brief introduction in room H0.2, approx. an hour's walk around Tooting (without speaking) and a de-brief with refreshments afterwards, in H0.2.

About the event's facilitator

Tansy Spinks is an artist using sound art, performance, live-improvisation, photography, and video. As a violinist and Fine Art lecturer, Tansy Spinks researches materiality and association, the everyday object and site-related sound as a live, performative practice.

She has exhibited and performed widely, exploring her practice from a studio in Brixton, South London.

Contact Details

openspaces@sgul.ac.uk.

Date: Tuesday 04 June 2024

Time: 17:15 - 18:45

Location: Online via MS Teams

Facilitators: Andrew Carnie, Dr Rebecca Goss, Dr Fiona Johnstone, Professor Sian E Harding, Professor Sanjay Sharma, Dr Alexa Wright.

How to register: Complete this short registration form.

I carry your heart: Multiple perspectives on the broken heart

About this event

This online event is a unique opportunity to explore the broken heart, its symbolism and healing through multiple perspectives: Cardiology, Cardiac Pharmacology, History of Art, Fine Art and Poetry.

World class clinicians and artists will discuss a wide variety of topics, including:

• the phenomenological effects of heart transplant
• their personal experiences
• visual symbolism of the heart from Ancient Egypt to contemporary art
• the detrimental effects of excessive exercise on some individuals
• the damaging effect of extreme emotion on the cardiovascular system
• the relationships formed between patient, carer and medic when humans are pushed to emotional and physical extremes.

Much more than just a blood pump, the heart is magical, spiritual and emotional, as well as anatomical. It relates to both body and soul, frequently functioning as the locus point of individual identity.

Join us as leading experts share their insights, images and poetry highlighting the complex relationship between mind and body through discussion of this mysterious organ and put your own questions to them.

Trigger warning: This event may include discussion of child death and sudden adult death.

About our speakers

Andrew Carnie - Artist

Andrew Carnie is a studio-based artist working from Winchester in the United Kingdom. His practice frequently involves a meaningful exchange with scientists. Themes and ideas are often based around neurology, and how we get a sense of ourselves through ideas and images generated by contemporary science.

The work is usually time-based in nature, involving light and slide dissolve systems or video projection onto complex screens. In darkened spaces layered images appear and disappear on suspended voiles, the developing display absorbing the viewer into an expanded sense of space and time through slowly unfolding narratives that evolve around them.

Carnie studied at Goldsmiths then the Royal College of Art, London. His practice has been supported by the Arts Council England, the Wellcome Trust, the AHRC, and SHRCHe exhibits locally, nationally, and internationally.

Dr Rebecca Goss - Poet

In 2007 Rebecca Goss’s newborn daughter Ella was diagnosed with Severe Ebstein’s Anomaly, a rare and incurable heart condition. She lived for sixteen months. Rebecca will be reading from her second collection Her Birth, a book-length sequence of poems beginning with Ella’s birth, her short life and her death, and ending with the joys and complexities that come with the birth of another child. A regular contributor to the world of medical humanities, Rebecca will be speaking of the relationships formed between patient, carer and medic when humans are pushed to emotional and physical extremes.

Dr Fiona Johnstone - Art Historian

Fiona Johnstone is an art historian specializing in the intersections between contemporary art and the medical and health humanities. Her most recent publications include the monograph AIDS & Representation (Bloomsbury, 2023) and the journal articles “Collaborations in art and medicine” (Leonardo, 2023) and “What can art history offer medical humanities?” (Medical Humanities, 2024). She co-directed the international online programme Confabulations: art practice, art history, critical medical humanities, and is currently co-editing the related volume, Art & the Critical Medical Humanities, to be published in 2025 with Bloomsbury’s ‘Critical Interventions in the Medical and Health Humanities’ series. She is also working on a new monograph, provisionally titled Critical Interlopers: artists as researchers and collaborators in healthcare and medicine.

Fiona is an Associate Professor in Visual Medical Humanities at Durham University, where she leads the Visual and Material Lab as part of the newly established Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities.

Professor Sian E Harding - Cardiac Pharmacologist

Sian Harding is Professor of Cardiac Pharmacology at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, and Director of the Imperial Cardiac Regenerative Medicine Centre. She obtained her PhD. in Pharmacology from King's College, London in 1981, and since then the primary focus of her work has been cardiomyocyte function in the failing heart. This has extended to gene therapy to modulate cardiomyocyte function, and she was Scientific PI for the UK's first clinical trial on myocardial gene therapy. More recently the scope has extended to the characterisation of cardiomyocytes derived from embryonic stem cells, and their use in cardiac repair, tissue engineering and drug discovery.

Professor Harding is Past-President of the European Section of the International Society for Heart Research, is on the Board of the British Society for Gene and Cell Therapy and has been elected as a Fellow to the AHA, ESC and ISHR. She was Special Advisor to the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee on Regenerative Medicine and is now a member of the CGT Catapult: Pluripotent stem cells programme Advisory Panel.

Professor Sanjay Sharma BSc (Hons), MD, FRCP, FESC - Cardiologist

Sanjay Sharma is Professor of Cardiology and Head of Research for the clinical academic group at St George’s University of London and St George’s NHS Foundation trust. His interests include heart muscle disease, sudden cardiac death in the young, and cardiovascular adaptation in athletes for which he has an international reputation.

Professor Sharma is the Director for the largest sports cardiology unit in the UK which is responsible for assessing athletes with potentially serious cardiac diseases from numerous major sporting organisations in the UK. He is Medical Director of the London Marathon and has been commended for providing one of the best medical services for endurance events in the world. He was awarded membership of Venerable Order of St John for his services to St John Ambulance for supporting the medical welfare of the runners. Professor Sharma was the lead cardiologist for the 2012 London Olympics and provided medical services for all endurance sports.

Professor Sharma has previously held posts as chairman of the ESC sports cardiology nucleus, board member for the European Association of Cardiovascular Prevention, congress programme committee member of the European Society of Cardiology in Preventive Cardiology, “Best of ESC” expert group and International associate editor for the European Heart Journal. He is currently a senior member of the ESC media and communications committee and editor for the ESC Congress News.

Working with the charitable organisation, Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) for the past 20 years, Professor Sharma leads the largest cardiac screening programme in the UK for individuals aged 14-35 years old.

Dr Alexa Wright - Artist

Artist, Alexa Wright lives and works in London. Her practice spans a range of media, including photography, video, sound, interactive installation and book works. Since the late-1990s, when she first became known for After Image, an award-winning series of photographs of people with phantom limbs, much of Alexa’s practice has involved building reciprocal relationships with people with mental or physical differences, medical conditions and, more recently, people in prison. Alexa has often worked in collaboration with medical scientists, notably with Alf Linney, Professor of Medical Physics and computer scientists at UCL (1999-2010). From 2007-2019 she was part of Hybrid Bodies, an interdisciplinary research team based at the University Health Network in Toronto, Canada.

Alexa’s work has been widely shown internationally in festivals such as: Kochi Biennale, India; FILE, SESI Art Gallery, Sao Paolo, Brazil; DaDaFest International, Liverpool, UK, International Women Artists’ Biennale, Incheon, Korea and Athens Photo Festival, Benaki Museum, Athens. Examples of solo exhibitions include: Toronto Photographers Workshop, Canada; Experimental Arts Foundation, Adelaide, Australia, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh and, most recently, Saatchi Gallery, London.

Date: Thursday 30 May 2024

Location: Monckton Lecture Theatre (Grosvenor Wing, Level 0), View map

About this event

You are warmly invited to attend the upcoming Open Spaces event: An Evening with Pets as Therapy.

Pets as Therapy (PAT) is a national charity that enhances the health and wellbeing of thousands of people in communities across the UK.

A team of dogs and their owners regularly visit St George’s Hospital to provide animal assisted interventions for patients with a wide range of conditions.

Hear how the charity connects the volunteers with the hospital, gain a clinical view on the benefits to patients, and meet the volunteers and their dogs!

All are welcome!

Please feel free to join us at 17:15 in the Monckton Lecture Theatre for some light refreshments and an opportunity to chat and network amongst colleagues or students across different disciplines.

Sign up now to confirm your attendance!

Contact Details

If you have any questions, please contact openspaces@sgul.ac.uk.

Date: Tuesday 19 March 2024

Location: The Curve Lecture Theatre (Ground Floor, Hunter Wing), View map

Join us for a transformative Deaf Awareness and British Sign Language (BSL) workshop in celebration of Sign Language Week!

Immerse yourself in an engaging and enlightening experience designed to foster understanding and appreciation for the Deaf community designed to help you to elevate your patient care and communication skills.

Led by an experienced, knowledgeable and passionate Deaf instructor, this workshop aims to bridge gaps, break down barriers, and promote inclusivity. This Open Spaces event is open to all, no experience or expertise required, and will be taking place onsite in the Curve Lecture Theatre.

About the facilitator

Luke Holdsworth, a dynamic individual whose journey has been shaped by a passion for breaking down communication barriers in a predominantly hearing society. With a deep commitment to education, Luke pursued a career as a qualified teacher, demonstrating that deaf individuals can excel in any field with the right support and accommodations.

With a unique combination of skills, including teaching, interpreting, translating, and consulting, Luke is not just a professional but a catalyst for change. Luke is not defined by the obstacles faced but by the resilience and determination that have propelled them to become a trailblazer in the realm of accessibility and inclusion.

Contact Details

Email openspaces@sgul.ac.uk.

Our At home with... events are a unique opportunity to meet St George's academic leaders, facilitated by Deborah Padfield. Lecturer in Arts and Health Humanities.

Learn about previous At home with... events below.

At home with Priya and Julian

Object lessons: From a musical score to a crystal ball

A unique opportunity to meet with Dr Priya Kadam, MBBS alumna of St George’s and 2021 'Outstanding Foundation Doctor of the Year’ (University Hospitals Plymouth and Health Education England) and Professor Julian Ma, Director of the Institute for Infection and Immunity at St George's, where he explore the applications of plant biotechnology for global infectious diseases.  They will be discussing their lives and careers using a selection of objects to help tell their inspiring stories. Don't miss this fantastic opportunity to get to know them, ask all the questions you would like, and share experiences over tea and cake.

At home with Judith and Rebecca

Object lessons: From an ancient rock to a stage door light

Professor Judith Ibison, Head for Primary Care, Course Director for International MBBS and Deputy Course Director for MBBS and Rebecca Henry-Litteck, Learning and Organisational Development Manager, discuss their lives and careers using a selection of objects to help tell their inspiring and surprising stories. Don't miss this fantastic opportunity to get to know them better, and ask questions such as:  What counts as success?  How did you overcome failure or disappointment? What role did risk play in your career?  Join them to put your own questions in an informal environment over tea and cake.

At home with Jane Saffell and Vanessa Ho

Featuring Jane Saffell, Deputy Principal Education, and Vanessa Ho, Dean for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, in discussion using a selection of objects to spark stories about their careers and lives. Don't miss this fantastic opportunity to get to know them better, and to hear more about their work.

At home with Jenny and Baba

Object lessons: The seen and the unseen: from a pair of glasses to an art gallery

A unique opportunity to meet with St George's Principal Professor Jenny Higham and Head of Centre for Technology in Education, Baba Sheba, in an informal environment to hear their inspiring stories. Learn how they overcame disappointment, what success means to them, how they approach risk and more. Come and put your own questions to them over tea and cakes.

At home with Annie and Emma

Object lessons: From a cricket ball to a pot of lavender

Facilitated by Deborah Padfield, Lecturer in Arts and Health Humanities, and chaired by T year medical student Rishi Kumar this is a unique opportunity to meet two of St George’s academic leaders who have made a significant contribution to their field. You will have the chance to hear their inspiring stories, connect with each other, and ask questions such as: what determines your choices, how do you overcome disappointment, what is success?

Annie Bartlett, Proffessor of Offender Healthcare, and Emma Baker, Proffessor of Clinical Pharmacology.

Annie Bartlett has spent much of the last 30 years working with offenders with mental health problems, most recently in Holloway Prison. She has also been based at St George's, teaching and researching, particularly on LGBT issues and when not doing that she is a lavender farmer.

Emma Baker is a clinical academic who has worked for the NHS since 1988 and been at St George’s, University of London since 1995. Her passions for clinical pharmacology, sport and painting have helped her avoid burnout and stood her in good stead during lockdown.

Mastery workshops explore different specialised skills, covering ways in which you can start or keep a new skill going.

Learn about previous Mastery workshops below.

What medicine can learn from Savile Row: A creative dialogue

Surgeon, GP and Engagement Fellow Prof Roger Kneebone (Imperial) in conversation with Savile Row tailor, Joshua Byrne.

Roger Kneebone (a clinician and academic) and Joshua Byrne (a bespoke tailor) will discuss the concept of ‘bespoke’, examining what it means for their respective worlds. They will describe how their conversations over many years have widened from an initial focus on dexterity and sewing to disclosing unexpected parallels in their approaches to professional work, and a shared understanding of what it means to become expert.

Roger’s book Expert: Understanding the Path to Mastery was published by Penguin Viking in 2020 and in Penguin Paperback in August 2021.

Open Spaces Presents a Series of Mindfulness Workshops

This series of three sessions provide a chance to explore mindfulness and its impact on our wellbeing. Western mindfulness practices have transplanted the Buddhist meditative traditions for enlightenment to stress-management purposes in the modern world: we can use these practices regardless of our religious affiliation or orientation to enhance our daily lives, prevent illness, and live and love in more colourful yet balanced ways. This short series of sessions with scholar Amy Spatz, will introduce you to the theories and practices of mindfulness using a range of approaches.  You can attend each workshop on its own but you will gain more from attending all three sessions since practice combined with a sense of community has been found to enhance the benefits mindfulness offers.

Please take some time out for yourself, join us and become part of the St George’s mindfulness community.  Dates and details below.

Mindfulness Workshop III: Mindful Compassion

Exploring the role of mindfulness in recharging and rejuvenating in dark or difficult times, including an introduction to MBCT and loving kindness meditations including an opportunity to practice and share thoughts with others.

Mindfulness Workshop I: Inter Relational Mindfulness

The role of mindfulness in relating authentically. This is an introduction to interpersonal mindfulness and its role in increasing agency and maintaining personal boundaries while engaging with others. If you have wondered how in a pandemic we can relate mindfully to each other, this is the introductory workshop for you. There will be an opportunity to practice and share thoughts with others.

Mindfulness I: What's All the Hype About?

Please join us for a brief discussion about mindfulness and to experience a short meditation with Amy Spatz. Amy is researching the effects of mindfulness and is a Lecturer in Clinical Communication here at SGUL.

Mindfulness I

Introduction to mindfulness: The role of mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR) in an uncertain and changing world.  This is an introductory workshop where you will have an opportunity to practice and share thoughts with others.  Fellow practitioner Julia Hutchinson will also join us in the discussion.

Mindfulness II

Mindfulness in conflict and love: The role of mindfulness in recharging and rejuvenating in dark or difficult times, including an introduction to MBCT and loving kindness meditations including an opportunity to practice and share thoughts with others. Julia Hutchinson, head of counselling at SGUL will also be joining us.

Mindfulness III

Inter-relational mindfulness: The role of mindfulness in relating authentically. This is an introduction to interpersonal mindfulness and its role in increasing agency and maintaining personal boundaries while engaging compassionately. If you have ever wondered how to support your goals in remaining empathic without losing yourself, this is the introductory workshop for you. There will be an opportunity to practice and share thoughts with others.

Restore: 20 min Mindfulness to Restore Equilibrium

Need a break? Join us for a mindful pause in your day; a chance to reconnect with your mind and body and to restore some equilibrium.

All are welcome! No experience needed, and a quiet place would be helpful.

Watch the Open Spaces launch event and Understand the path to mastery: medicine and magic – two kinds of expert close-up live performance, with Professor Roger Kneebone and magician Dr Will Huston.

An Evening with Pets as Therapy

Facilitators: Global Health Alumnus Jackie Belle and Dave Woodruff

Pets as therapy (PAT) is a national charity that enhances the health and wellbeing of thousands of people in communities across the UK. At St George’s a team of dogs and their owners regularly visit the hospital to provide animal assisted interventions to patients with a wide range of conditions. The team also provide wellbeing support to staff across the hospital.

Join us for this talk to hear how the charity connects the volunteers with the hospital, a clinical view on the benefits to patients and a chance to hear from the volunteers (and meet the dogs!).

The Big Read – Author Event with Phil Stamper

Join us for a talk by the author Phil Stamper of the 2023 Big Read novel, The Gravity of Us. This will be a fantastic opportunity to ask Phil questions about the book, his writing processes and what he's working on next. We will begin with introductions, followed by an author-interview with students. Then we will continue with a short reading, followed by an opportunity for your questions.

Creative workshops offer students and staff the opportunity to explore the creative arts; like photography, dance, movement, music, mindfulness, visual arts, and sculpture.

Facillitated by international and local artists, participants are encouraged to explore areas of creativity they might not have before. No previous experience is necessary, and students and staff from all programmes are welcome to attend.

Types of creative workshops include:

Animation

Introduction to Tony Gammidge’s work in secure settings. Create your own stop-frame animation in this whole day workshop.

Introduction to Tony Gammidge’s work in secure settings. Create your own stop-frame animation in this whole day workshop.

Award winning Artist, Art Therapist and Animator, Tony Gammidge (www.tonygammidge.com), will screen a selection of extraordinary animated films co-created in prisons, secure units and with asylum seekers from Calais and Freedom from Torture.

Artist and Art Therapist Tony Gammidge will discuss the animated films he made with participants in prisons, secure units and with refugees and asylum seekers. He will explore how this medium enables contributors to tell their story in a safe and powerful way.

You will also be invited to try some stop-frame animation over tea and cake!

Creative Writing

This workshop takes a creative approach to collaboratively decolonise ‘decolonisation’ by co-creating blackout poetry.

It offers you the opportunity to critically contest your current understandings of ‘decolonisation’ and to (re)imagine ways of challenging coloniality embedded in the process of learning and living. The workshop creates the space to move away from colonial designs of thinking through a ‘rationale’ of fantasy and fabrication.

Drawing

An introduction to this expanding field of study and practice which examines the interface between the medium of comics and the discourse of healthcare.  Led by the celebrated comics artist and doctor, Ian Williams, (who coined the term “graphic medicine” and authored the critically acclaimed Bad Doctor trilogy of graphic novels), you will be introduced to some of the important works in the field. You will start to make comic strips in an enjoyable and relaxed environment.

This event will be on site and provide an opportunity to meet each other, ask Dr Williams about his motivation for initiating ‘graphic medicine’ and engage with your own creativity.

Movement

Movement workshops are taught by Anusha Subramanyam, a choreographer, movement therapist, and Asian dancer from the Beeja dance company. These workshops encourage participants to find and explore their own possibilities of movement by building awareness of sensations within the body and exploring improvised movement and the use of breath. Accompanied by live music, vocal, and percussion.

Music: Experience first-hand how using singing can help adults living with long term respiratory conditions manage their breathing, improve fitness and enhance wellbeing. A background explanation of the conditions we work with, objectives for our work and the structure of how we work with our hospitals will be followed by an interactive full singing for breathing workshop.

Photography

Award winning international Artist Joy Gregory returns to St George's with an exciting photography workshop focusing on her work 'Breaking Barriers' with the Black Cultural Archives. An opportunity to see some of Joy’s extraordinary images and to experiment with creating your own photographic portrait, exploring your own identity.

From Rita Hayworth to Rita Ora good lighting is essential in the creation of a great image. This workshop will explore the components of good portraiture through the use of lights, reflectors, camera position and pose.

Design

Learn about the process of rapid response archiving with History of Design researcher Tomas Brown, and Fleur Elkerton and Anna Talley, founders of Design in Quarantine. Experiment with preserving your own pandemic experience through image, writing and object.
Bring an object, piece of writing, or image along and we will consider how you can preserve it in a personal archive, its significance, and its different implications as a record.

Sound and Silence

The practice of healthcare requires ‘deep’ listening and yet how much attention do we pay to sound in comparison to sight? Sound artist, lecturer and musician, Dr Tansy Spinks (Middlesex University), will facilitate two workshops introducing Michael Chion’s three modes of listening. In between sessions participants will be given a score or ‘sound walk’ to follow in their local environment and some short readings reflecting on ways in which we receive, analyse and filter sound. These workshops are introductory and participatory.

The Art of Disease

An introduction to the Museum of Disease and to the art of visual notemaking.

This is an opportunity to interact with the unique collection of preparations/specimens from the Museum of Disease at St George’s on site. Following on from our successful online Art of Disease workshop last term with Lucy Lyons, we are offering an onsite workshop this term with Lisa Temple-Cox. During the workshop participants will be guided through a number of drawing techniques to aid in making visual records, using specimens from St George's pathology museum.

We will explore line, tone, and erasure to capture texture, depth, and detail, using everyday materials and stationary. We may also briefly touch on working with other media.

Our Meeting of minds events are a unique opportunity to hear and take part in discussions at the intersection of medicine and other industries.

Learn about previous Meeting of minds events below.

The chemistry of memory: A workshop exploring memory through science, colour and poetry

In this fascinating Open Spaces symposium, chemist and poet Dr Stephen Paul Wren will introduce the chemistry of memory, exploring topics such as how synaptic plasticity affects memory, and will share some of his own poetry. Artist Jo Volley will develop these discussions further asking what are the colours of memory, how do we perceive and process memory visually, and how do we remember colour. Artist and writer Professor Sharon Morris will reflect on the ideas offered by Stephen and Jo through her own poetry, giving participants an opportunity to respond creatively through word, colour or images of their own.

More about our speakers

Dr Stephen Paul Wren is a chemist. He was educated at Cambridge University. His books ‘Formulations’ (co-written with Dr Miranda Lynn Barnes) and 'A Celestial Crown of Sonnets' (co-written with Dr Sam Illingworth) were published by Small Press and Penteract Press respectively. Stephen's poetry has appeared in places such as 14 magazine and Tears in the Fence.

Jo Volley is an artist. Her research projects include The Pigment Timeline Project, From Pigments to Solar Power, Colour & Emotion Toolkit, The Pigment Farm.  She is the director of Colour & Poetry: A Symposium and edits its annual publication Colour & Poetry and along with Dr Ruth Siddall established World Pigment Day. She is currently part of the part of the ION-DRI public art programme commissioned to develop a new work exploring the topic of colour and dementia for the building.

Professor Sharon Morris has published two collections of poetry and an artist’s book of poems and images with Enitharmon Press and Editions. As part of her teaching at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, she set up the Slade Poetry Shed as an online resource for writing and writing workshops. She has also run poetry workshops for asylum seekers, including a series entitled ‘Mother and Other Tongues’, focussing on different languages.

Language in obstetrics and gynaecology: A failure to deliver?

Reconsider everything you know about the language of women’s health care.

The panel will explore the language and metaphors of women’s health, their impact on care and ways in which healthcare can enable women to feel in control of their bodies and treatment. The panel includes:

• Dr Rose Abbott, a GP who set up a freely accessible website, Kensa Health, to empower women by providing healthcare information
• Dr Sabina Dosani, psychiatrist, medical humanities academic and creative writer. Dr Dosani’s research explores accounts of obstetric ultrasounds in contemporary fiction and non-fiction to illuminate understanding of women’s relationships with their unborn babies. Dr Dosani is particularly interested in how the language women use differs radically from the language of obstetrics.
• Professor Jenny Higham, Vice-Chancellor, St George’s, University of London, who will provide unique insights as a senior clinician and consultant gynaecologist.

Space: From the telescope to the microscope – space exploration meets medical discovery

Join Professor Neill Reid, Associate Director for Science at the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, USA, and virologist Dr Elizabetta Gropelli as they share astounding images from their work, from the telescope to the microscope.

Professor Reid, who works with the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope, will share with attendees the latest images of space, from space. In response, Dr Elizabetta Gropelli, will discuss images of viruses derived through cryo-Electron microscopes. Though vastly different in scale, they both share a similar language describing the canyons, peaks and ‘tectonic movements’ of the planets and viruses alike.

A panel discussion will follow including Dr Myles Harris, CEO and founder of Space Health Research and the UCL Space Health Risks Research Group, Dr Sarah Fortais, the first artist in residence at the Centre for Outer Space Studies, UCL and Dr Pauline Parker, currently working around ideas of future advancement in business and space with Kingston University colleagues.

Together the panel of experts will explore the implications for health and healthcare when we cross the frontiers of what we know and can see, asking how can we benefit from these new scientific advances and resulting understanding without damaging the very thing we are exploring. What links the invisible in space with that inside our very cells?

The evening will conclude with a poem by Kingston University Senior Lecturer in Chemistry and poet Dr Stephen Wren.

The event connects to our 2022 St George’s Big Read book, The Gravity of Us, by Kingston University alumnus Phil Stamper. The book follows Cal, whose dad has just been selected by NASA to become an astronaut on an expedition to Mars, conferring hugely prestigious status, but impacting significantly on the future lives of his wife and son – and their relationships.

Join us to enjoy this unique chance to see extraordinary images and together consider their implications for health research, practice and care.

Everything is True: A Junior Doctor’s Story of Life, Death and Grief in a Time of Pandemic

Award-winning writer and winner of the NHS Junior Doctor Leadership Prize, Roopa Farooki, shares her story of a junior doctor's love, loss and grief through the Covid-19 crisis. Roopa joins the Open Spaces programme for an evening of discussion about her work.

Everything is True is the story of Roopa’s first forty days of the Covid-19 crisis from the frontlines of A&E and the acute medical wards, as struggling through her grief, she battles for her patients’ and colleagues’ survival. Working thirteen-hour shifts, she returns home each evening to write through her exhaustion, chronicling the devastating losses and slowly eroding dehumanisation happening in real time on the ward.

Roopa Farooki is a writer and junior doctor for the NHS. She is the author of six literary novels that have been translated into over a dozen languages, and a series of middle-grade children’s books for Oxford University Press. Her writing has been awarded the John C. Laurence Prize and an Arts Council Award, and listed three times for the Women’s Prize. She is also a lecturer on the Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford, and the Ambassador for family for Relate, the counselling charity. In 2020 she was awarded the Junior Doctor Leadership Prize from her NHS Trust, for her work during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rapid Response: Designing your Archive in the Wake of the Pandemic

Learn about the process of rapid response archiving with History of Design researcher Tomas Brown, and Fleur Elkerton and Anna Talley, founders of Design in Quarantine. Experiment with preserving your own pandemic experience through image, writing and object.

Bring an object, piece of writing, or image along and we will consider how you can preserve it in a personal archive, its significance, and its different implications as a record.

Open Spaces Open Symposium

Imagination: Why is it as Important to Medicine and Science as the Creative arts?

In this unique event, five leading practitioners/scientists explore and contrast the role of imagination in their respective disciplines: Professor Dryden Goodwin (Fine Art), Dr Elisabetta Groseppi (Virology and Global Health), Professor Jane Saffell (Neurobiology and Higher Education Innovation), Professor Mike Walker (Design), Dr Thushari Welikala (Innovation and interculturality in Higher Education).

It is easy to think of imagination as the province of the arts and humanities but the last few years have shone a stark light on the need for imaginative responses to global crises. In a stimulating forum you are invited to explore the necessity of imagination to healthcare and science as well as the arts and humanities and its power to transform practice, research and life itself.

Join us for stimulating short presentations and lively interactive debate interrogating what exactly is imagination and why do we need it? Share what it means to you.

The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes: Sexology, Law and the Lost Generation of Trans Lives 1962-1996

Until the 1960s, UK trans people self-identified, accessed affirmative medical care, corrected natal birth certificates, and had full legal equality. Everything changed after the 1968 medico-legal case of trans man Dr Ewan Forbes, devastating trans healthcare, civil liberties, and lives. The case was a closely-guarded secret for fifty years.

The hidden case of Ewan Forbes was a closely-guarded secret for fifty years until Professor Zoë Playdon’s research forced government to disclose it, and the unsavoury truth that had compromised the lives of a generation of trans people.

The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes won the 2022 Stonewall Honor Book prize, was described by Baroness Helena Kennedy KC as ‘A landmark work of history, law and social change’, by the New York Times as ‘Erudite, passionate, persuasive’ and by the Sunday Times as ‘Reads like a thriller’.

Beginning on 4 November 2024 and running for 7 weeks, this collaborative module with humanities students and staff from across the University and beyond, will explore the complex phenomena of loss, death and bereavement in the context of healthcare workers, who are confronted by them on an almost daily basis.

Dates: Begins on Monday 4 November 2024 and runs for 7 weeks.

Award: 15 credits at Level 6.

Delivery: Hybrid (online and in-person).

This is a collaborative module where health and science students learn alongside arts and humanities students.

Overview

In the era of Covid-19 imagining the experiences of another is more important than ever, as is an ability to pay attention to the positive potential of ‘recovery’, and its meanings. Loss, death, and bereavement are three of the most extreme and difficult experiences many people will face in their lifetimes, and yet for healthcare workers these complex phenomena must be confronted on an almost daily basis. While clinical literature attempts to outline and advocate for the so-called ‘good’ death, how far does this conform with the lived experience of patients, carers, and their families? How can clinicians understand the experiences of those they seek to treat, and how can they manage experiences which don’t fit within a management plan?

This is a collaborative module with humanities students and staff from across the University and beyond, which began in 2019/20 and which was highly rated by the students participating in the first collaborative module, Finding a leg to stand on: clinical, critical and creative approaches to the human body who called it: ‘ thought-provoking’, ‘stimulating’, ‘fascinating’, ‘challenging’, ‘an eye-opener’, ‘amazing’.

Learning outcomes

• Compare clinical and non-clinical representations of complex phenomena.
• Analyse different forms of representation, including discussing literary form and its impact on content.
• Write an extended essay in response to reading of own choice.

Teaching and assessment

The module uses textual representations of loss, death, and bereavement to explore these key issues, examining how far reading literature can help us understand the experiences of others.

Students will be able to choose from a broad range of literary texts on these themes, complemented by consideration of other art forms, and will compare these to clinical literature and practice. Students will be required to read extensively throughout the module, and to write an essay based on their reflections.

The module will include structured support for the development of extended writing skills, with dedicated sessions in which students construct an essay title of their choosing and work with the tutor on the development of their research plan.

To register to be part of this exciting and much needed course please contact abartletl@sgul.ac.uk.

Beginning 13 January 2025 and running for 11 weeks, this collaborative module with humanities students and staff from across the University and beyond will explore topics such as what it means to have a body and the bodily experience.

Dates: Begins Monday 13 January 2025 and runs for 11 weeks.

Award: 30 credits at Level 6.

Delivery: Hybrid (online and in-person).

This is a collaborative module where health and science students learn alongside arts and humanities students.

The module was originally designed and delivered in collaboration with Birkbeck College, University of London. Watch the presentation below by staff and students from City St George’s and Birkbeck for the Association of Medical Humanities Conference 2021. This will give you an idea of the curriculum design and the benefits and challenges of an interdisciplinary learning experience in mixed cohorts.

Overview

What does it mean to be and have a body? How do we speak about and define bodily experience? What happens when the body fails? How do we diagnose and treat the body?

These complex questions play a fundamental role in the practice of healthcare and will form the basis of rigorous interdisciplinary discussion.

This is a collaborative module with humanities students and staff from across the University and beyond, which began in 2019/20 and has been highly rated by the students participating in the first cohort who called it: ‘thought-provoking’, ‘stimulating’, ‘fascinating’, ‘challenging’, ‘an eye-opener’ and ‘amazing’.

• 30 additional credits, Level 6
• Draws students from across all City St George’s undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.
• Undergraduate students should normally be in Year 3 or above.*

*Year 2 students may apply with the approval of their Programme Director but the module is not suitable for Year 1 students.

Learning outcomes

If you take the course you will:

• learn in mixed cohorts from across City St George’s and beyond – meeting students with different views and methodologies to your own (Healthcare and Humanities).
• experience real interdisciplinarity within the teaching team as well as your peer group.
• develop key skills in critical analysis, essential to clinical practice and hard to acquire through biomedical science teaching alone.
• gain 30 academic credits at Level 6 (additional to your programme credits).
• make your CV stand out.

Teaching and assessment

Teaching

On this module you will be taught by convenors and lecturers from a wide range of disciplines across the arts and humanities, science, medicine and healthcare.

Assessment

1000 words of reflective writing (0%), a 1500-word resubmission of reflective writing (40%), and a 3000-word essay (60%)

View a previous year's module outline.

To register interest, please contact dpadfiel@sgul.ac.uk.

Hear from previous students

Priya, a final-year MBBS student took the module last year, has uploaded a video evaluation.

Ananya, a MBBS student, has written a blog about their experiences on the course.

Hear more about the course from students who took it last year:

"I was interested the moment I saw the poster for the module, but was hesitant to sign up because of all my other work. I'm so glad I did! I have found the opportunity absolutely invaluable and loved every single session. I can't explain how much I have enjoyed learning in a different way and with different students. The teaching was wonderful and the challenge of thinking critically and in more depth has been great. I wish the course never had to end, but I am so excited to take everything I've learnt and continue to explore the medical humanities!"

— Physiotherapy Student

"My thinking has definitely changed. These changes will aid my clinical practice. It is seeing what is important to other people, particularly non-medical and their perspectives when thinking about health and the way they view illness."

"I think the course offers so many valuable skills which we otherwise might not have access to. I have loved learning through different disciplines and would not hesitate to recommend the course to anyone considering it."

"The healthcare professions do not exist in isolation. We may reflect, or have our biopsychosocial models, but we could pay more attention to other disciplines and their knowledge. This module has taught me so much, but especially just how much we have to learn from the humanities."

"This module has really broadened my horizons."

"This module has allowed me to see an aspect of medicine that brings together all of my interests and I hope to continue reading within the topic."

"It was interesting to be challenged outside of the medical environment and helped me grow to critically analyse different pieces of writing and engage in complex discussion."

"I enjoyed the Welcome museum visits as this was something that allowed me look at various art forms in context and look at the meaning behind why and how they were created."

"Beside the massive change that happened in my understanding of the nature and perception of the body, working with people from different disciplines gave me the possibility to experience a different environment and express my questions and thoughts in a supportive and positive environment."

"For me, it felt like the opening to the next phase of 'progress' in future education to come."

Running in 2025 to 2026 (dates TBC) this collaborative module with Goldsmiths is an opportunity to experiment with a range of artforms, work with patients/people in the community as partners, and further develop self-directed research skills.

Dates: This module will run in 2025 to 2026 (exact dates to be confirmed).

Award: 30 credits at Level 6.

An opportunity to experiment with a range of artforms, work with patients/people in the community as partners, and further develop self-directed research skills. This will be a collaborative module with Goldsmiths.

Overview

Cultural and creative activities, such as art, working with museum objects or engaging with the environment have been shown to benefit human health and wellbeing. This module will provide you with the opportunity to explore your own creativity through practice-based arts workshops facilitated by leading practitioners in different mediums and to apply some of these techniques to the co-creation of a piece of artwork in a range of community settings. You will be introduced to the field of arts and health and to the challenges of evaluating the health impacts of arts and health projects through a series of parallel seminars providing theoretical grounding in arts and health, the social determinants of community health, social prescription and a range of cultural attitudes to health and illness.

Building on the collaborative module developed with Birkbeck last year and the Arts & Health taster sessions previously, this innovative and practice-led module will bring together experts, creative practitioners, service-users, and students to work in partnership to co-create a piece of artwork on a medical humanities topic. It will involve collaborating with participants in arts & health activities in a range of settings such as: Furzedown older persons project, Furzedown primary school, Wandsworth Prison, City St George’s Art Team (eg dance for parkinsons and ICU bedside music) and Dulwich Picture Gallery and will be underpinned by theoretical seminars.

As a key outcome, you will be supported in co-developing your own original piece of artwork (in any form such as visual art, dance, music, poetry, graphic novel, play) with service users from a range of local community partners and to produce a summative portfolio including a written element which documents and analyses the creative and research process.

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of the course you will be able to:

• demonstrate a critical understanding of arts and health and of the value of engaging in creative practices to health generation/improvement
• demonstrate an ability to work outside your comfort zone and with others – here community service users - as equals/partners, co-creating an original artwork
• reflect critically, bringing together theory, observations and personal experience of a range of creative practices and mediums and to communicate this effectively in various formats.
• have acquired a demonstrated ability to work independently
• engage sensitively and respectfully with communities outside the University, recognising the challenges faced by and the expertise of local patient groups prior to meeting them in a healthcare setting.

Teaching and assessment

The module will start in 2025 and run for 11 weeks.

Hear from previous students

Feedback from students taking the taster arts and health community placements which fed into the development of this module:

Overall, the placements increased my confidence. I am immensely grateful for this enriching opportunity, through which I was able to practise my communication skills, work in a team and to learn about the diverse experiences and treatment of young and elderly people in society.

Being a part of this placement has enabled me to appreciate the significance of art in promoting wellbeing, as well as working with two contrasting age groups. This invaluable experience will be a vital part of my journey in the medical field as I will be interacting with patients of all ages. Furthermore, I am hoping to pursue a career as a paediatrician; my convers. My conversations with primary school children has increased my confidence remarkably.

This experience has been eye opening for me and certainly taught me a lot about how arts can help boost health.

For me the take-home message from attending the Furzedown project was recognising the absolute autonomy older people wish to have, ensuring we do our utmost as a society to assist with the maintenance of this autonomy will provide happier, healthier older people. Projects like the Furzedown Project are something that should be an absolute priority for the health service and local authorities as healthcare costs increase exponentially for this population.

I feel it is crucial as future healthcare professionals to become better-rounded in our approach to diagnosing and treating illnesses. We should be given more opportunities to go out into the community and explore other potential forms of relaxation and therapy that are non-conventional but more enjoyable for the patient so that in the future we all can take full advantage of them.