Fermenting: Self-care and Feminist New Materialist Arts-Based Research Methodologies
I have been taking the last few days as a moment of self-care. For me, this has meant to stop pressuring myself to be producing outputs...
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ELLEN RICHARDSON
Health Humanities and Arts researcher
I am a zine-making, creative health researcher based in Exeter. Welcome to my website where I hope to share my research with you and create positive communication between current health research and communities.
ABOUT ME
Multidisciplinary Researcher with expertise in Health Humanities and Arts
I am currently undertaking a pre-doctoral fellowship with the National Institute for Health Research between 1st September 2024 and 31st August 2025. I am based at the Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health at the University of Exeter but my training programme takes me all over the UK.
I am an MScR graduate from the University of Edinburgh who works with communities whose lived experiences of health and illness are not always effectively communicated with health practitioners or researchers. I have been utilising arts-methods, specifically zine-making, as an alternative to traditional research methodologies (such as interviews or surveys) as a way to encourage evocative, meaningful, and personal communication around such individualistic and significant topics.
I have always been drawn towards everyday experiences of health, as I have specialised in medical anthropological training and research during COVID-19, and over the course of my masters project I discovered the power of art and creativity in improving communication between communities and health practitioners, researchers, and families and friends. I strongly believe in the power of providing the opportunity for forms of alternative research and enabling communities to direct such research as they see most appropriate.
I am currently based in Exeter where I spend my time engaging in multiple creative activities such as pottery, zine-making, painting, and music.
I would love to hear from you if you have any questions about my work, enquiries for getting involved, or even stories to tell about similar things you have been involved in.
Keep reading to see some examples of my work!
WHAT IS ARTS-BASED RESEARCH?
Arts-based research is a recent trans-disciplinary movement which attempts to use art or creative methods to produce and perform knowledge which can improve lived experiences and the outcomes of research.
Zine-making, specifically as discussed in my work, is the creation of small DIY booklets which you can fill with collage made from ripped up magazines, writings and poetry, drawings or paintings, tissue paper and tactile materials, and more. These booklets are usually used to share information or tell stories or create feelings - but they do not always have a purpose. In my research, I ask people to make zines around a certain topic or question but the boundaries are theirs to set. Individuals can utilise whichever skills they have - which might be linguistic or entirely image-based - to tell researchers something about their experiences and how these might be made better.
MY WORK
Scroll through to see some of the zines I have made throughout my research. Read more to view the full zines.
THE AFFECTIVE SPACES OF ALTERNATIVE MEDICINES AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS ON THE HEALING EXPERIENCE
This is a zine edition of my full masters dissertation. It covers the main body of the research in a way that seeks to be accessible whilst inspiring further questions and responses from the communities with whom it is shared.
"I would definitely get involved in something like that again... It made me feel good about the world knowing there was someone so lovely researching in such an open sensitive way and the way she held the whole thing just prompted the most wonderful discussions about important stuff. Magic."
From one collaborator.
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