Our academic themes

Drawing for health and wellbeing

In the context of growing national and international interest in the relationship between drawing and cognition, perception, visual information, communication and the development of creativity, the Drawing for health and wellbeing theme provides a cross-school forum for critical and creative debate. 

Drawing research is multidisciplinary and has a range of interpretations and applications across fields. The Drawing for health and wellbeing strand focuses, represents, facilitates and promotes drawing research, scholarship and social partnership work across the centre membership.

The theme seeks, sustains and develops collaborative drawing research and partnership opportunities with individuals and organisations externally. It nurtures a strong connection with the university’s doctoral and taught postgraduate community as an important resource through which new knowledge and applications of drawing are identified, articulated and disseminated.

Many of our activities in drawing for health and wellbeing are captured on our Drawing space blog.

Design for change 

Design has been a major strength at the University of Brighton for many decades, and has contributed to developments in community cohesion, sustainability, therapeutic engagement and accessibility.

We bring a specific focus on how the principles and practices of design can be used to gain new insights into the complex challenges of health and wellbeing - both within and beyond formal care settings. The group specialises in practice-based and multidisciplinary approaches to design research and benefits from long-standing relationships with global institutions including Nagoya University of the Arts in Japan, KHiO, the National Academy of the Arts in Norway, projects in Ghana and a range of institutions in New Zealand and Australia.

Making well  

Through the act of making - through our choices and uses of materials, and the ways we make our world from those materials - we are involved in critical decisions that impact upon the wellbeing of our whole society.

This theme of the Centre for Arts and Wellbeing brings academic and creative attention to making, materials and craft techniques, with research that is applied to a diverse range of fields in wellbeing, from health to climate change, and has an influence upon education, sustainability and innovation. Expert understanding comes from a range of scholarly and practice disciplines including fashion and textiles, craft, material sciences and architecture.  

Research has investigated issues such as: scabies in care homes, using textiles as a medium and working in collaboration with the Brighton and Sussex Medical School; the relationship between textiles, repetitive processes and mental health, particularly in relation to the rites of bereavement; and creative research into materials to enhance sustainability dialogues.

Inclusion through narrative

The ways in which individuals and societies make and communicate their stories influences identity, builds understanding and resilience, shares diversity and nurtures equality. 

This theme considers how storytelling can be used to extend cross-disciplinary communities of practice across health, the humanities and the arts. It operates a programme of symposiums and a book series with Intellect. This strand has worked notably with minority ethnic communities, survivors of domestic abuse, refugees and those with experiences of HIV and Aids.

Creative methodologies

Creative methodologies brings people together to make use of creative tools, techniques and knowledge to understand more about the worlds in which we live, explore problems, and/or work towards solutions.

It is a rapidly developing area of research, which cuts across disciplinary boundaries, and opens up fruitful connections with partners from outside the higher education context.

These approaches can be conceptualised as a third paradigm, which sits outside the old qualitative-quantitative binary, radically changing how we think about the nature and potential of research. 

The Creative methodologies stream brings together researchers from across the university who use creative methods to collect, analyse and/or disseminate data on health and wellbeing. 

Our methods: are arts-based; are transformative, social-justice based; use technology in inventive ways; and/or incorporate innovative mixed-methods. We also work with external practitioners, artists and community partners to adopt a transdisciplinary, community-focused approach to research. Our research outputs incorporate innovative, impactful forms such as poems, exhibitions, plays, dance, film and web-based tools. 

Sustainable communities

A sustainable community is one that is economically, environmentally, and socially balanced, healthy and resilient.

This theme aims to understand the role of diverse arts in fostering these sustainable communities. It investigates issues that include biodiversity and healthy environments, socio-economic wellbeing, and the promotion of inclusive, diverse and educated societies.

Recognising the significant value of the arts beyond their commercial application, the theme researches approaches to problems such as waste and pollution, offers practical improvements to individuals' and communities’ confidence and brings opportunity through re-making, maker-spaces and ‘circular’ methods. Specialist research and enterprise innovations are tackling project work such as digital facilitation tools for education and representation, products to support and perpetuate healthy ecosystems and the co-design of improvements in physical and mental health-care.

We adopt a peer-to-peer interdisciplinary research and practical approach in our work with communities in urban, rural and coastal settings locally, nationally and internationally. Our commitment to and interventions for sustainable communities spans from Sussex in the UK to the African and Asian continents.