The Spirit of the Possible

By |2025-06-10T10:17:30+00:00June 10th, 2025|News|

by Jan-Bert van-den Berg Artlink’s Curious Routes is one of the strands of work that inform the ground-breaking REALITIES projects, funded by the UKRI Mobilising Community Assets Programme. Jan-bert van den Berg is the community-embedded researcher for the Edinburgh Hub. Through grassroots creative practice and interaction, we support individuals to share interests that establish networks of wellbeing. These will create a ripple effect of shared experiences that seeks to influence necessary change in how public structures tackle health inequalities.    During the first pandemic lockdown the power of community action came to the fore. Neighbours looked out for each other, communities came together [...]

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Co-developing an Index of Community Assets

By |2025-05-22T13:29:13+00:00May 22nd, 2025|News|

by Alan Marshall, Kimberly More and Helena Tunstall The characteristics of the neighbourhoods we live in have the potential to impact our health, wellbeing as well as other social outcomes. Existing evidence often focusses on area deprivation with less consideration of positive aspects of community that are valued by residents. Such neighbourhood assets might include access to nature, strong feelings of belonging and trust in neighbours or a willingness to give time for broader social good within the neighbourhood. In response the Index of Community Assets team within REALITIES are working to co-develop, collate, and validate a set of neighbourhood measures on community [...]

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Harnessing Nature for Recovery

By |2025-04-17T12:08:05+00:00April 17th, 2025|News|

Harnessing Nature for Recovery: A collaboration with Ninewells Community Garden Chris Lim, Senior Lecturer in Design and Making Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, University of Dundee As part of REALITIES, Ninewells Community Garden is developing a nature-based activities programme aimed at supporting people in recovery in partnership with academics, particularly a transdisciplinary team at the University of Dundee. Located within a 18th century arboretum on the grounds of Ninewells hospital in Dundee, Ninewells Community Garden (NCG) is a volunteers-led initiative that has been serving the community for over a decade. The idea of a community garden started in [...]

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Mind of Man: Developing a new work of theatre exploring neurodiversity in Scottish Prisons

By |2025-04-17T12:08:15+00:00March 2nd, 2025|News|

A Blog by Sam Rowe, Creative Expressions Coordinator at Bethany Christian Trust In January 2025, Bethany Christian Trust’s Creative Expressions department began drama workshops in a Scottish Men’s Prison to explore the participants’ experiences of neurodiversity and health/social systems. Our aim is to collectively write a piece of theatre that reflects these experiences, that can later be produced and toured to other prisons, conferences and training events. This project follows on from the work we have been doing in the Scottish Criminal Justice system since 2020 (or 2016, for the departments coordinator prior to joining Bethany). This follows three main strands (i) devised performances [...]

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In Motion Podcast

By |2025-02-04T12:00:50+00:00January 31st, 2025|News|

‘In Motion’ podcast is a collaboration between North Lanarkshire Council Community Learning and Development (CLD), New College Lanarkshire and the University of Edinburgh. Students Laila Abdul Kadir, Bócan Romer and Dylan Elliot interviewed participants on CLD summer daytrips on the subject of creative health and barriers to participation, with the goal of developing new projects, events and relationships with communities. Listen.... The Producers “Hi, I’m Laila, a sound student currently taking a gap year to explore various aspects of the field and gain more experience. My interest is in sound design and editing. My work on the [...]

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Reflections on Collaboration in Academia

By |2025-01-31T09:06:32+00:00January 24th, 2025|News, TCV|

Standing on the cusp of the second year of REALITIES, I find myself reflecting on processes throughout the last 11 months of the project. When it comes to researching evidence-based alternatives in living, imaginative, traumatised, integrated, and embodied systems (REALITIES), Process with a capital P becomes integral to collaborative research, working, and action, which—to me—is a standout quality of the project and one of the many reasons I excitedly jumped at the chance to be involved in it. Academia can often—whether purposefully or unintentionally—put up literal and figurative walls that create barriers instead of opportunities for large, cross-institution/cross-partner projects. Access to university resources [...]

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Health Photography Competition: WIN £250!

By |2025-02-04T12:14:34+00:00December 18th, 2024|News|

PICTURE THIS: What is Health? FREE ENTRY ~ OPEN TO ALL ~ £250 PRIZE WHAT DOES HEALTH MEAN TO YOU? The REALITIES Research Project is proud to announce a photography prize exploring our beliefs about health, to celebrate the establishment of a formal partnership with "The Sustainable Healer", a new educational movement for health professionals that know there is more to healthcare than the way we are practising it. Is health about striving to eliminate pain and illness, or more about being able to adapt in the face of adversity. Maybe you want to explore what health means to society as a whole? [...]

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New systems for a healthier, fairer Scotland and planet.

By |2025-03-02T14:50:40+00:00December 17th, 2024|News|

What does it feel like to experiment in ‘a safe space’ that holds multiple REALITIES? Marisa de Andrade, Project Lead for REALITIES reflects on the first ten months of an epic, transdisciplinary UKRI funded consortium dreaming up new systems for a healthier, fairer Scotland and planet. Dissolve tough, inflexible structures through soft, fluid practices “You can just feel yourself levelling out when you step into a space that soothes you, a self-regulated ecosystem,” a psychiatrist tells me as we take tiny steps into a still lake in the middle of December without wetsuits. It’s a balmy five degrees Celsius ‘in here’ – welcome [...]

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Carers Creatively Taking Time To Explore Our Landscapes Through Photos

By |2023-12-08T14:47:23+00:00December 8th, 2023|News|

Carers Creatively Taking Time To Explore Our Landscapes Through Photos To celebrate Carers Week (5 – 11 June 2023) North Lanarkshire Council Arts Development Team have produced a Photo eBook of nature photography which was created by BAME carers groups over the past year as part of the Art is Everywhere project, in partnership with Lanarkshire Carers. We started off meeting these community members online to discuss their experiences then they were sent a self-care pack with lip balm, hot choc sachet, notepad pen and candle. Included in the pack, was a scenic photo hunt adventure to capture pictures when they were out [...]

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Complex Systems, Wicked Issues and Big Ideas

By |2023-12-08T12:58:51+00:00December 8th, 2023|News|

Complex Systems, Wicked Issues and Big Ideas: Where do we start, where do we end? Art is Everywhere and REALITIES lead, Dr Marisa de Andrade, was asked to speak to the United Nations (UN) Development Programme in September 2023. Here’s what was Marisa was thinking in the lead up to the event…. [Marisa’s internal monologue to her Publisher/Editor/Funder/Manager etc] “I need to find an entry point that REF will accept and humans, non-humans and more-than-humans will flourish… (I’m very glad no one’s reading this).” For about 10 years (I think – time’s just a non-linear construct), I’ve been collaborating with various international (WHO, [...]

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